ntldr missing or corrupted. 2

[jldipert]

I've got a friend that I help keep their machine running. they are using W2K Pro nad about every 2 months they get the NTLDR missing or corrupted error. Anyone got an idea why this keeps happening?

A repair doesn't work. It requires a HD format nad complete install. As you can imagine having to do this this every 2 months is getting tiresome.

Sure would appreciate anf suggestions on how to avoid getting this error ow what is causing it?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[bcastner]

I would suspect a slowly failing hard disk.
Look carefully at any disk "optomization" or defragmentation tools they may be using. Not all are safe for NTFS, and even the ones marked as safe have often been revised several times.

It might be a self-inflicted wound by using out-of-date disk utilities.

 

[wolluf]

Check the cabling to the hard drive - both that its securely connected, and the connectors are not damaged.

Go to the drive manufacturer's site and get their diagnostic utility & check the disk out.

Do you get any other unexpected errors?
How long has this been happening?
What's the machine spec/age?

 

[jldipert]

I've checked out the HD, a western digital WD800BB, nothing wrong there either with the connections or from running the diagnostics supplied by WD with the HD. The CPU is a Celeron 2.0GHz. Can't remember the model of the MB but it was an ABIT. I built the machine for them about 8 months ago and it was fine for the first 4 months, since then it gives the NTLDR missing .... error about every 2 months. I've pulled the memory out and switched it with another machine and still get the same error on the same machine and no errors on the machine that I put the memory in.

I did notice something last night while running repair with the ERD and I had the case open and I noticed that one of the CD drives was pretty hot. I noticed this after I had already got the machine running again. For once the ERD & Repair worked. I swapped out the hot CD so I'll see if that makes any difference. Never had a CD reader get that hot so maybe that was causing the problem but not sure how, it was on a different controller than the HD but never know

 

[wolluf]

good luck with CD swap (it could be the problem - any problem hardware can cause issues like this).

 

[allteltec]

I had a XP Pro do the same thing, ended up bad Mouther board. It had bulging caps, Abits was bad for bad caps.

 

[BlackS2]

Had this error just the other day, never had it before, I was actually working on the PC and things started to freeze so I had to give it a hard reset, then got NTLDR missing, funnily enough after many attempts at repairing I left the machine off for a couple o hours and used another, turned it back on and it was fine, been fine ever since.

 

[gnwhite1201]

Black

Funny how things like that happen, I had that happen to me as well. I am in the process of building a W2K machine and I had a bad battery, so when I removed power from the room that the PC was in, it lost its CMOS info. I tried booting it up afterwards not thinking about the lost info and W2K came up with the 'Bad or missing' thing, I thought I might have to reload it, but went back to it a day later and it has been humming along fine now for 2 days!

Question.

Is there anyway to download all the updates and store them for future builds that one must do in order to get W2K running proper or is the only way is to download and install once you are connected to the internet?

Any reply to this post would be greatly appreciated!

Glenn

 

[noobtechie]

Gnwhite,

Yes you can download it and save it in a location where you can just execute it when the time comes to update any pc. Just do a google search on which sp you want to download and you should see a wide selection of choices.