How to stop MTLDR poping up during start-up

when I try to start up my computer a message pops up during start-up that says "MTLDR is missing press cntrl-alt-delete to restart" and the start up will not continue. please help me with this problem. I press cntrl-alt-delete and always takes me to the same message. help please!

This question was answered on November 22, 2004. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

---

Here is how to fix this problem below.

1 Boot to a command prompt by using a boot disk (if you have one Otherwise you can make one from any Windows 95/98/ME PC.

2 At the command prompt, type fdisk, and then press enter.

3 Click set active partition, choose the partition that you want to make active, and then hit enter.

4 Press Esc.

5 Remove the boot floppy disk, restart the computer.

Using the Recovery Console, copy the Ntldr file from the Windows XP CD-ROM to the root directory of the current active partition Follow these steps:

1 Start your computer by using the Windows XP Setup floppy disks or by using the Windows XP CD-ROM.

2 At the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press F10, or press R to repair.

3 Press C to start the Recovery Console.

4 Copy the Ntldr file from the Windows XP CD-ROM to the root of your system partition by using the following commands, pressing ENTER after each command:

1 Type cd . to go to the root of drive C (Note the space)

2 Type the letter of the CD-ROM drive

3 Type cd i386 to change into the right directory

4 Type Copy ntldr c:

5 Type Exit

If the partition was not formatted by using Windows, you might also need to run the Recovery Console fixboot command to make the active partition bootable

After you can boot into Windows, it is recommended that you use the Windows Disk Management snap-in tool to reset the original system partition as the active partition, and then restart the computer.

From Microsoft:

If the NTLDR is missing or damaged try the Recovery Console.

To start the computer and use the Recovery Console to replace the boot sector

"Insert the Windows XP Professional Setup CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive

Restart the computer If prompted to press a key to start the computer from the CD-ROM, press the appropriate key

When the text-based part of Setup begins, follow the prompts Press the R key to repair a Windows XP Professional installation

If you are repairing a system that has more than one operating system installed, from the Recovery Console choose the Windows XP Professional installation that you need to repair

Note

If you press ENTER without typing a number, the Recovery Console quits and restarts the computer

The Recovery Console might also show valid installations of Windows NT 4.0 However, the results of attempting to access a Windows NT 4.0 installation can be unpredictable.

When prompted, type the Administrator password If you do not have the correct password, or if the security database for the installation of Windows XP Professional that you are attempting to access is corrupted, Recovery Console does not allow access to the local disks and you cannot replace the boot sector

To replace the boot sector, at the Recovery Console command prompt, type: fixboot [drive:]

If you do not specify a drive letter, the Recovery Console replaces the boot sector of the system volume If you need to replace the boot sector of a volume that is not the system volume, then you must specify the appropriate drive letter."

About the author

Posted by Michael of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on November 22, 2004

Need Help with this Issue?

We help people with technology! It's what we do.
Contact or Schedule an Appointment with a location for help!