I have built a new pc with the following specs
AMD 3000xp cpu
MSI K7NT mobo
2 x geil 3200 512mb ram
Maxtor 120gb 8mb buffer
ATI Radeon 9800 pro
Pioneer dvd writer
Creative Live value soundcard
AMD 3000xp cpu
Windows XP Pro with service pack 1
When i set the fsb to anything other than 100, just after the boot screen
i get the helpful message 'ntldr missing, press alt cntrl delete to restart'
I have reinstalled windows from scratch, and tried repair, but nothing seems to help.
I have used live update to get the mobo up to date.
Can anyone give any advice at all?????????????????????????????????????????
Any tips appreciated.
Thanks in advance

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After the installation, have you entered the BIOS and changed the boot order to the Harddrive first??

The fact that you have tried a repair and reinstall leads me to believe it is a hardware problem or hardware setup problem.

First, is this board a K7N2 with an nforce2 chipset?

If so:

It should be set to a default of 133 when you first enter the BIOS. If it is set to 100, then you need to set the jumpers (J10, J11) on the motherboard correctly. Refer to your manual (page 2-31). They should be set for a default 133/166. Then you can set it to 166 or 200 depending on which XP300+ you have (333 or 400).

Make sure the FSB/DRAM ratio in BIOS is set to SPD or 1:1. (1:1 for best performance)

Check your jumpers on the HDD. Check the cables.

If this is all ok, you will have to troubleshoot your hardware. If you can get into Windows when the FSB is set to 100 and it functions normally, that would lead me to believe your HDD is fine. It wouldn't hurt to check it anyway by going to Maxtor's website and downloading their hard drive diagnostics (http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast3.htm) and checking the drive.

In some rare instances the ntldr missing error is caused by bad RAM or faulty DIMM slots. Try with just one stick in different slots. Then try the other in different slots.You can download memtest86 (http://www.memtest86.com/) and test your RAM. Test it one stick at a time, in different slots again.

This should keep you busy.:)

Good luck and post back with results.

Hi
Thanks for the advice, i will go trough the tips at the weekend, when i ahev a little more time.
Thanks again

hogboy:

I merged your reply into this thread, to keep it where it belongs. In the future look at the top right or bottom right of the thread, you'll find a blue button that says "Post Reply". Click there to post your response, rather than starting a new thread. When you start a new one we have no idea what thread you're answering too, without going back to the main list and looking up your user name.

NT loader is the program that start the XP and normally located at the root directory of your hard drive. There might be an error in your CMOS which had lost the location of NTLDR, when you install your XP did you choose the default directory for you OS? Are you using the whole 120GB as one partition or more?

I am using the 120gb drive as 1 partition

You might want to also consider at least a couple partitions. In the event that you would need to reformat and reinstall XP you would not need to "erase" the entire drive to do so.

If you put XP on its own partition you could just reformat that partition and not have to mess with your other data...