I had some problems with windows XP Home Edition and so on the basis that it is always difficult to fix all of the interrelated problems which spring up together at a given time, I decided to follow a scorched-earth policy and reformat my hard-drive. This I have done, but when it came to rebooting my computer I have come up against considerable difficulty. I foolishly do not have my notes on me as to how my computer has responded to my various attempts to revive it. However the two errors that I have come up against are:

(I have formatted the hard-drive with an NTFS file system, which is what it had before and I am reinstalling the same copy of XP)

.SIF file corrupt

NTLDR is missing

I’m not sure whether the first error is relevant any more or whether it only occurred BEFORE the reformatting. Anyway I have looked up fixes I have seen for similar problems and tried them but have so far failed to get anywhere.

I have tried

booting XP using the XP start-up disks

booting XP using windows 98 disk

If I try to get into BIOS I just get a screen asking me which drive I want
to boot from, booting direct from the CD drive using that screen just leads
to the NTLDR error as normal – whether I try to boot up XP or LINUX

The ‘repair’ option on the XP boot disks does not help

I have tried replacing the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files without result

I have replaced my BIOS

All this has got me nowhere.

I would be very grateful if anyone could shed some light on this; it could be something very simple as I am a bit of a novice in these areas although I like to get stuck in and try to do it for my self.

Thanks

Is this a dual-boot system or was the Linux reference just saying that you tried to boot off a Linux CD?

You did say that you formatted the hard drive but some people would say that when all that they meant was "I formatted the D: partition on my hard drive but left C: and E: as they were"

It is not a dual boot system. I am planning to make it a dual boot system in the future but for now I just want to get it up and running.

I think the Poster should install it correctly from scratch. Open up the heart of the PC by making sure all cables are secure and fitted correctly. Make sure the r.a.m. is secure and clean. Make sure that all the components within the pc are in fully working order. Clean inside of dust. make sure power supply is not on when attempting this feat, make sure you wear an anti-staic device or if not discharge your static by tapping sides of the pc case.

I then would advise doing a fdisk from dos. A high level format to make sure you get rid of all the nasty crap.

You may ask 'i don't have a boot disk for dos' or 'i can't do fdsik i don't know how to'. O.k. not a problem, download a utility that will check your hardware for errors, check the hd is working fine and will do a kil disk for you, wiping that hd totally clean.

Download the boot disk from here, http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/ burn it to a cd disk and then boot from it. It has lots of free utilities to help you out.

Back to problem. When you finally sort it out and install xp make sure you do a file system ntfs and DO NOT DO A QUICK format. Once you have installed xp gone through booting to windows, start updating hardware devices, if it says you need to reboot then do so, do not then install other devices. When all that is done, get your network sorted out, before you log on to the net, make sure you have a firewall running and then get your ass over to windows update. Once you have done all these tasks, MAKE AN IMAGE OR A BACK UP ON A DIFFERENT PARTITION. Good luck!

Thanks , but unfotunately that hasn't helped .

I can read CDs if I boot up with a win 98 disk but I can't boot from one, it doesn't even get as far as accessing the CD it just comes up with the NTLDR error. I have also tyed running the boot programs directly and this has also failed to work.


Are there any othe suggestions... please .


Thanks , casper

one thing, sometimes when you boot up and see NTLDR is missing, this can mean that there is a non-system(?) disc in the floppy. this has caught many of my work colleagues out when they have booted their pcs :-)

Not that I'm afraid. I get the error with no disk in the drive and also if I try to boot off a CD via a good boot disk.

Do a low-level format to wipe your hdd clean.
Go to the site leesmithg provided a link for hdd disk wipe utility , and download Darik's boot and nuke.
After you get your floppy set up, insert in floppy drive and boot.
You might have to go into the BIOS to set fdd as 1st boot device.
I use the quick erase method, which is still very slow, however much faster than other wipe choices.
Check out the various choices if you choose.
Some of them take literally several hours thou.

"Note:You must run the install program to create the DBAN floppy disk. You cannot create the DBAN floppy disk by copying files to a blank floppy disk".

Please clearly label your DBAN boot media because it is dangerous.

After wiping hdd, set up BIOS to boot from your Win XP disk, and start your clean install.
Good luck.
cheers, ~pawprint~