NTLDR is missing & can't get into BIOS

Question

This is really getting frusterating. When I  power up my Inspiron 1100, I get this error: ''NTLDR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart' When I press these the Dell screen comes up, but pressing F2 won't take me to the System Utilites. None of the other FKeys are affective either. When I hold down the ESC key, it looks like it POSTS, but then goes to the error message again.   I've goggled and searched this site for the last two days to find a solution and I've tried every thing I can find. I've created boot disks(which I've tried running off a usb floppy drive) & I've tried putting the  Windows XP disc in the CD drive as well.   If anyone has a bright idea of how I can fix this, I'd be truely grateful.

Rijko · Answer

hi, welcome.

first thing to accomplish imho would be to boot into the bios.

I would remove cdrom/dvd drive, pcmcia cards, harddisk and battery.

Reseat your memory. ( if you need info on how to do that, look here )

Try to boot. No Luck ? reseat the CPU also. (see above link for how-to )

You can also try to attach an external keyboard just to make sure your laptop keyboard is not disfunctional.

Hope this helps.

leduke30 · Answer

Rijko, I'm not trying to second guess you, but you forgot to tell him to use the Floppy Drive only with some bootable diskette in it to bootup. It is easier to get into BIOS F2 Setup that way..

djnate27 · Answer

Well, I tried removing the memory, CD drive, hard drive, etc.  The only thing I could get to work was while the hard drive was removed, I'd restart and push FKeys like crazy for probably 25 seconds.  This finally allowed the CD to boot.  And as components were starting to be installed I pushed the hard drive back in. This allowed me to reinstall Windows XP.  So now Windows comes up when I reboot, but I still can't F2 to the System Screen.   Now I'm trying to upgrade my BIOS, but I get an 'unsupported system' error.  How can I update BIOS if I can't do it in Windows and I don't have the option to exit to DOS?

Raicard · Answer

what bios version you currently have?.. from that point we can move on.

leduke30 · Answer

The reason you are getting an Unsupported System is this; Dell changed BIOS Types from Phoenix to its own Dell originated type for your model, and the crossover was version A22. You must first flash with that A22 and then you will be able to use the later ones up to A32

Locked Topics – Laptops General

NTLDR is missing & can't get into BIOS

Was this post helpful?