Problem: NTLDR missing press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart

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I am probably not a techie like most people here. I gave my laptop in for “diagnosing” at my local geek squad and was very disappointed. They couldn’t fix my Toshiba Tecra S1( a rather old laptop that has no floppy drive). The geek told me I needed a new hardrive but im wondering if the guy knew what he was doing in the first place so im hoping someone can help me.

Problem: computer says the following: NTLDR is missing press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart.

Potential solution found in a Toshiba help forum:
http ://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=24292

The hard drive was "Locked" so even though I reformatted there remained data on there protected, and so the computer went though its boot sequence, and stopped at the hard drive, hence the NTLDR message. There was data still on there looking for Windows XP.

SO in order to do a fresh install, in my case install windows 98 and then upgrade to XP, I had to put the hard drive in another computer that had a floppy drive, boot from Windows 98 boot disk, when I got to a DOS prompt, change to C: , then type in LOCK /? , this unlocked the drive.

Then I used a little utility called WIPEOUT to clear the drive, then I typed REFORMAT C: , then started to install Win98, but stopped right after the install program copied files to the drive. Then I removed the hard drive and put it back in the Satellite (I would not have to have done it this way if the A-15 had a floppy!) and install continued, and all is fine.

In summary:
• On a second PC-system with FDD:
1. Create an win98 Bootdisk, download Wipeout and copy the unziped wipeout.exe on the bootdisk
2. Install the Toshi HDD as C:/
3. Boot up with a win98 Bootdisk
4. Unlock the HDD with LOCK C:
5. Run WIPEOUT C:
6. Restart and boot with win98 CD
7. Run the Setup till all files are copied and shut down the PC. It should be at the first Setup-Restart-Message.
8. Reinstall the HDD at the Toshi and continue the Installation.

My problem with this solution:

1) My Toshiba Tecra S1 has no floppy drive…can I use a USB stick?
2) I have a win98 recovery floppy BUT I don’t know if it has the “Wipeout program” and if it doesn’t I don’t know where I can download one
3) what’s HDD and FDD and where can I find a win98 CD?

im soooooo lost! plz help meee..i'll send u a check or something lol!...anything to fix this laptop! I will be forever grateful
 
Can you not just reinstall with the XP disk on your laptop once you have cleared the drive on your other computer, or is it only an upgrade disk?
I'm not sure if you would be able to install Win 98 on another computer and then install the hard drive in to your laptop and boot with it.

Normally when I've had the NTLDR problem on my PC, I just reinstall Windows. You could try and buy a cheap OEM version of Windows XP that you can just install on to your laptop I suppose.
 
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