NTLDR error

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so my parents HD crashed a few days ago so they bought a new one.(old one was old an small on space anyways.) but now on boot they are getting NTLDR missing press Alt+ctrl+Del for restart. now correct me if im wrong but it has to do with the bios not booting up right. right? well if thats the case i have no idea what to do here. they have a Sony Vaio and apon boot up theres no "press this butten for setup/bios" and just goes strate to NTLDR missing. anyone have a solution for this? btw wasnt sure if this was the right board to post on so sry if it is.
thanks
 
This is the correct forum. :)

NTLDR is the Windows boot loader.

The boot process looks a bit like:
CPU starts BIOS > BIOS chooses a drive > Bios loads MBR (AKA: 'Boot Sector') > MBR loads 'Boot loader' > Boot loader starts OS

NTLDR missing tells us your BIOS has successfully loaded your drive's MBR, but your MBR cannot locate the file necessary for booting Windows, which is C:\NTLDR.

This is a logic problem and while it is software in nature, it can be caused by various hardware issues.

Since you've mentioned you just added a new drive, it sounds like your computer is trying to boot to the new drive, but there is no OS there. You need to physically change the drive so it is correctly installed as a slave, not a master. If you're sure it has been added as a slave (please double check!), you'll need to take a look at your BIOS setup. Tapping F2 at boot up is probably how your Sony lets you into the BIOS, but it could be a different key. You may need to change the boot order to your old drive again.

If it STILL doesn't work, here's a snippet from another post that explains how to (possibly) fix it. But please post back before you try it so we can troubleshoot some more first.

Rick said:
* Boot from your XP CD
* Go through the normal process up until the option to "Press R" for Windows recovery appears. Our goal is get into the Recovery Console.
* After several seconds, you should now be in a command line interface.
* Login to your primary installation of Windows. This is typically the install on Disk 0, Part 0, but it will be whatever drive you have assigned to be the default boot drive in your BIOS or RAID BIOS.
* Type bootcfg /rebuild to start a search for OS installs. It may take a minute or two.
* You will recieve prompts for the versions of Windows installed. Choose Y for each one you'd like to be present in your boot loader.
* You'll be prompted for a 'load identifier'. This is the name of the discovered OS, so type whatever you'd like to name the OS.
* You'll be prompted for OS load options. Type /fastdetect for each of these times
* Once your boot.ini is rebuilt, everything should boot without the CD. You may have duplicate OSes on startup. You can solve this later on under System Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery> Click EDIT. Remove the 'extra' settings (this is boot.ini by the way)
 
Thanks for the reply!
well i change it over to a slave but now it is still giving me that error. i only have this one HD installed the other is fryed or so says my parents. so i have it as a slave and when i pop in the windows disc and switch to bios to boot the cd driver frist it still gives me NTLDR. is there a solution to this or could it be faulty hardware else were in the computer?
thanks
 
lets start fresh

so now you can get to bios??
you skip over that issue (resolved)?
you have to know
when in bios setting to boot from device order
does not look for a driver but the device itself
if it does not find bootable in first device goes to next on the list
if no boot disc (software) in the device it will not go past this display
do you have bootable install disc to repair ntldr file?
if not you will need 1 now back to drive
reset jumper for master since a single drive try CS
reboot with cd or dvd inserted
should prompt to press any key if not you don't have boot order right or disc is bad not bootable
read here in sticky on fix ntldr from disc
 
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