1 Topic by sonwon

  • sonwon
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-09-11
  • Posts: 11

Topic: NTLDR Missing

FYI to all,

I used Parted Magic v1.9 to move and resize my Windows XP partition.  For some reason it failed when trying to do this in one operation so I did it in 2 passes with no problems.  Accept afterwards I was getting 'NTLDR missing' on boot.  The NTLDR was not missing?  And a google search suggested running chkdsk twice.  I ran it until there were no errors found using the /P flag (chkdsk /P).  After this I ran bootfix.  I recommend booting from the Windows XP CDROM using repair and logging in to run these commands from there.

GParted-0.3.4 in case you were wondering.

Here are the steps in order:

1. Boot Windows XP CDROM.
2. Select repair.
3. Login to Windows.
4. chkdsk /P until all errors are gone, may take 2 or more passes.
5. bootfix.
6. Reboot and hope.

Anyway these steps worked for me.

Good luck,
SonWon

2 Reply by class413

  • class413
  • Moderator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-05-25
  • Posts: 2,376

Re: NTLDR Missing

If we move a partition, it is obvious that the partition numbering can be modified, so we need to fix it from the xp install cd.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

3 Reply by sonwon

  • sonwon
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-09-11
  • Posts: 11

Re: NTLDR Missing

Thank you for the reply.

This isn't obvious to me a noobie.

If I remember correctly Partition Magic (I dumped them back in 2001 after Symantec bought them; I wouldn't upgrade.) handles NTFS moves and resizes without triggering this problem?  Not as important now that I know how to fix the condition with chkdsk and bootfix.  I realize Microsoft is NOT helping at all where as Partition Magic has inside help from Microsoft.

Thank you for all your work on GParted; it is a great tool to have available,
SonWon

4 Reply by class413

  • class413
  • Moderator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-05-25
  • Posts: 2,376

Re: NTLDR Missing

If you just resize partitions or move them without changing their order on the hard disk space, you have not this problem. (You have just to reboot in windows 2-3 times and run chkdsk, if it doesn't run automatically.)

If the partition order is modified, then the bootloader looks to the wrong partition.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

5 Reply by sonwon (edited by sonwon 2008-02-07 19:58:57)

  • sonwon
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-09-11
  • Posts: 11

Re: NTLDR Missing

Odd then since I didn't delete any partitions, only changed sizes.

Thank you,
SonWon