Ntldr is missing

[frkqu]

when I start to install Win XP Pro from CD ROM the following warning occurs:

Ntldr is missing
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart your computer

I have browsed online for hours so far. The major reasons are listed here http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm, but I think that none of them are appropriate to describe the scenario I run across here. My bios version is not very old (it's next to the newest one). Therefore, I suspect my HD has no active partition to install a fresh version of Windows XP operating system because the HD I'm using is one being formated (into NTFS system) as a second HD when previously installed in another PC. Here are detailed sequence of events before above message shows up:

start PC
bios check RAM and Hardwares
Basic 640K passed
extended 319M passed
LC2 cache RAM passed

HD .... (detected brand info)
CD ROM .... (detected brand info)

boot from CD ... (press any key to start)

Ntldr missing
press .... to restart your pc

One thing weird is the line "boot from CD ..." does not alway shows up each time when I restart the system. I check CD ROM connection, and seems ok.

ANY COMMENTS or HINTS???

Frank

[saphalline]

Ok, according to this (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/N/NTLDR.html) Webopedia article, you might have had another OS installed on that HD. Is that correct?

In any case, something old on the HD is causing the XP installer to halt. My advice, in contrast to Wepopedia, is to wipe the drive clean with the HD manufacturer's utility. You can download it for free on their website and make a bootable floppy, then zero-fill the whole hard drive. Provided of course that you don't need anything on that hard drive. ;)

[ziba-june]

I say your harddrive is the first drive your BIOS tries to boot from and since there is no NTLDR(OS loading file) on the harddrive it tries your CD-ROM. You can either press any key when you were asked or go to your CMOS and change the loading sequance to CD-ROM as first option and then harddrive as second . Put cd in the cd-rom and restart yur computer. When it ask you to "press any key to start from cd-rom" you press any key. This will start installing you xp, hopefully.

[frkqu]

my bios setes booting sequence as following

1st floppy disk
2nd CD-ROM
3rd HD

please re-read the original dignostic symptoms for possibly locating the problems in my pc

Frank

[Mick_D]

I don't know what you are asking, however, your question appears to imply you know or think you know the cause of your problem. I may be entirely misreading your post so I'll ask you to try this.

"Boot the computer with a Windows 95 or 98 Startup diskette or another bootable diskette with sys.com on it. ( I am assuming you have one since the previous OS was one or the other). Then, at the "A:\>" prompt, type "sys c:" and press "enter." A "System Transferred" prompt should appear and then the user must reboot the computer without the diskette".

Now you didn't say if you even tried what saphalline suggested but that should have worked also. If you don't report back what you have tried and your results, it's very hard to help you.

[frkqu]

the HD used has indeed a Win XP installed. I finally figure out what is going on here. nothing is wrong with hardware and bios setting but key board keys that are not all working properly...

Thanks all