NTLDR Missing-

**HerminShS** · December 9th, 2007, 03:01 PM

Ok, here's my problem.

I have a HP NC4200. It has no CDROM and no Floppy. I got it with no OS.

I took out the drive, put it in another laptop, formated a partition to 10GB, I copied the entire I386 folder from the WINXP CDROM to the c:\I386 folder.

Everything copied over, I re-checked it by looking at the number of files and size on disk, and they all match.

I have a USB external Floppy Drive. I am able to boot from the USB floppy into a dos prompt using a Win98 Startup Disk.

I then go to C:\I386 and type Winnt. The system goes thru the routine, everything is fine up to the point of restart. I get a error that says:
"NTLDR is missing". I made sure that the file is there, I have tried using a different CD, re-formating and everything else.

Can someone give me a suggestion on this? Thanks.

**CCT** · December 9th, 2007, 03:11 PM

If you have a legitamite second copy of the OS, just put that drive in the working laptop and install the OS on it.

Then try it in the 4200.

Copying the i386 doesn't create a boot.ini afaik.

**HerminShS** · December 9th, 2007, 03:20 PM

I have tried that already, but here's the funny thing. If I take this hard drive and put in in the working laptop, the system actually boots and goes thru with the install. So I let it go thru all the way, until you get to the "screen resolution prompt" then I took it off and put it back on the HP and it won't get past the little cursor that comes up right after POST.

**CCT** · December 9th, 2007, 03:39 PM

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...rtTaskId=11529

**Irish Shark** · December 9th, 2007, 11:04 PM

Did you check the boot order in the BIOS? Failing that, do you still have the usb flash drive installed at first reboot? Here is the service manual for the laptop, see section 2-20 for a flowchart to trouble shoot your issue.

**NooNoo** · December 10th, 2007, 02:43 PM

If it's not the boot order, then try reflashing the bios. Otherwise it looks like the interface twixt disk and motherboard is fried.

**CeeBee** · December 11th, 2007, 09:36 AM

A different partition on the HDD than the one with the files is active?
The HP might have been configured with a small diagnostics partition and a larger OS partition. Make sure you delete all partitions from the drive using fdisk, then put the drive in the other laptop, format with NTFS and copy I386 again...