XP Won't Boot - NTLDR is missing - Or a Blinking Cursor 2

[bcastner]

A recent question here was for a workstation that stopped booting when a software install created some 6500+ temporary files in the root of their boot hard drive. While Recovery Console has the DEL command, it does not without pre-planning on your part allow the use of wildcards; e.g. DEL *.tmp is not permitted. (

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310497)

While FAT32 volumes have a limit of 512 entries in the root of a vlume, and long files names count for 4 entries if they are used, I assumed it was this issue that was responsible. But the drive was NTFS. Hmmm.....

Then I remembered this KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/228734/EN-US/

And its XP version:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320397

My guess was that the process of file creation, and file deletion, had so defragmented the MTF that poor old NTLDR was getting lost in the shuffle.

Even in situations without a lot of file activity in the root of your boot volume, over time an issue of MFT fragmentation can lead to a surprise boot message that NTLDR is missing. Since the MFT is not defragmented by the native XP utility, nor by others except as a boot-time scheduled task, it made sense for Microsoft to release utilities to do the job.

Do not wait for an error to happen to you. Once a year or so run the MFT defragmentation tool on your NTFS volumes.

Now Why, you might ask, are the utilies named BCUpdate2.exe? Because the most likely symptom of excessive MFT fragmentation is a blinking cursor at top left when starting XP. "BC = Blinking Cursor"

HOWTO: Use the BCUpdate2 Utility on NTFS Volumes
[ul]

[li]You must create an XP Boot disk, and boot from it. Since the MTF is locked while XP is active, you have to access XP in this indirect fashion.

[/li]

[li]To create an XP Boot disk for an NTFS Partition:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305595/

[/li]

[li]You have to use a fairly specific command line:

bcupdate2.exe drive_letter: /f

[/li]

[li]You can ask for the file from Microsoft Support. See my second link above.[/li]
[/ul]


Best wishes,
Bill Castner

 

[bcastner]

Do not click this link:

http://www.protostorm.com/bcupdate2.html

 

[stduc]

Do not click this link:

http://www.protostorm.com/bcupdate2.html

OK - I won't! But why?

 

[bcastner]

stduc,

I know you clicked it.

 

[stduc]

Not yet Bill - but I may just test my firewall/anti malware measures! LOL

I read the microsoft blurb though & I don't think its relevant to me anyway as I have a separate C drive that holds no data apart from that which software demands is on C and no files apart from O/S files in the root.

 

[bcastner]

Have you done any service pack updates?

Run it anyway. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or something like that.

 

[stduc]

I'm all up to date.

 

[JockMullin]

Hi, Bill

Very useful discussion, thanks vm.

I can think of two reasons why you say not to click that link:

1. You don't want to tell folks to get MS s/w from 3rd party sources.

2. The download button on the page you don't link to by not clicking on it could be giving "Not Found", though of course I can't be sure, not having clicked thereon (grin).

However, I did find bcupdate2.exe available here:

http://www.pcwarfare.com/pctools.toc.htm

Link provided without warranty expressed or implied.

Brgds
Jock

 

[bcastner]

Jock,

Those are awfully good guesses. But I do not know. I am not going to click on it until stduc or linney clicks on it.

Bill

 

[linney]

I clicked on "JockMullin's" link. I never click on Bill's links, just on principal.

I'm hoping that "Diskeeper 10" does the job with the MFT anyway using "Frag Shield"?

"Frag Shield helps you configure your MFTs and paging files as recommended in published Microsoft guidelines".

 

[BadFrog]

Lol the last time I took a call for, "NTLDR is missing" I popped the floppy out and all was well!

Oh and I didn't click the link..... ;P

"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy"
Albert Einstein

 

[BadBigBen]

1.) just out of curiosity, I clicked on Bill's link... it leads to nowhere...

The requested URL /tmp/index.html\bcupdate2.exe was not found on this server.

2.) thanks Bill for the information, it should come in handy...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[bcastner]

Ben,

We will see who falls for your misdirection ploy....