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Reinstall problem
Hi all. I hope I'm posting in the right forum. I have a Dell Dimension 3000 running XP SP2. It was running slow so I formatted my hard drive and was going to re-install Windows using the OS disk that came with the CD. On start up I get an NTLDR missing error. It tells me to press Ctl Alt Delete but that does nothing. I have no floppy drive and no OS. Most of the solutions I've found seem to be for people who have an OS installed. I don't know what to do. I can't do anything. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
sucl_1
52 Posts
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January 1st, 2009 23:00
hi, first u need to boot from OS cd then copy the NTLDR from cd drive->i386 and paste it in the C:\i386. then Rboot your system from HDD.
Atl Big Dog
3 Posts
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January 2nd, 2009 05:00
I'm not sure what you mean by OS cd. I'm trying to boot from the OS Reinstallation CD that came with the computer. I've also gone into the set up and changed it so it boots from the CD first and not the C drive.
sucl_1
52 Posts
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January 5th, 2009 03:00
i mean by OS CD the Operating system CD u got from dell.If u have that u need to boot from cd.when ur windows startup from the cd then u can copy ntldr from your cd drive and paste it to c: and c:\i386. It is the accurate answer for your query. If u r unable to boot from cd, if u have another system running this operating system.install your HDD by a connctor or install it as a secondary drive in the system. Then u can copy NTLDR from the first C: drive(that is inbuilt in other system) and paste it to your system's C: and C:\i386.
Atl Big Dog
3 Posts
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January 7th, 2009 07:00
I don't have another OS on the computer. I pulled the HDD and connected it to my laptop, copied NTLDR to it and reinstalled. Booted from the Dell OS CD and now it says Error Loading Operating System. I went into the Setup to look at the System Event Log and it's logging either Keyboard Error (seems to work fine) or Memory Size Different Memory Size Decreased. There are more Keyboard Erros' though. I went into the BIOS and it says I have 512Mb of memory which is what I have. I even tried to install XP to the HDD while it was hooked up to the laptop. Went through most of it, got to a reboot and got a blue screen and an error. While hooked up to the laptop I ran chkdsk also and no bad sectors. I even tried copying the entire OS CD to the HDD.
sucl_1
52 Posts
0
January 7th, 2009 22:00
hi,
Blue screen may be due to rusty components so reassemble your system after removing dust. Then go through this link it will help u to install a operating system : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316941. You need to use reinstallation cd (OS CD) provided by dell.
Take care.
Alexandra_P
2.6K Posts
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January 8th, 2009 09:00
ATL: A bit of searching came up with this. The most likely problem is 1 - you're still booting from an unbootable source.
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm
You've confirmed that the XP CD itself is bootable, since you were able to use it on another machine.
The fact that the error message you get changed after you put NTLDR on the hard drive would indicate your PC is still skipping the CD and trying to boot from the hard drive.
It so happens this happened recently to someone else, though in that case the drive hadn't been reformatted, so it was easier to tell that it was still trying to boot from the drive. I've not had to deal with this problem directly (I'm going strictly by logic), but that thread may help you.
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19249516/19400042.aspx#19400042
SlamX
950 Posts
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January 9th, 2009 15:00
Problem here I believe is the CD is not being booted. If you hit F12 at bootup does it give you a menu for boot device? If so select CDROM/DVD then watch on screen for message that says press any key to boot from CD.
How exactly did you format your hard drive?