Hey i recently lent my external hdd to a friend and got it back today and plugged it in and my computer wasnt recognising it so i restarted the computer and now when it tries to boot it says NTLDR is missing, press ctrl alt del to restart.

Anybody know what i can do to fix this? if tried unplugging the external hdd and restarting and im still getting the same problem.

try unplugging the drive and rebooting.. it is trying to boot from the external drive

If you've removed the external drive (and any other drives etc, made sure there are no floppies in the drive (if you still have a floppy drive), the only thing I can suggest is to try a repair install.

I'm suspicious that it's only just started happening once you got the drive back though...

sometimes plugging an ext drive in can mess with the boot order in the bios, maybe double check the bios is still set to boot off your normal drive.

Yeah ive unplugged the external and tried and it is still coming up with the same error, so strange.

Ive also gone into bios and it still says my hdd is the primary drive, any other suggestions ?

load windows on another drive grab what s*** you can off your primary drive and format son

Well my hdd is partitioned into 3 sections, if i reinstall windows will i only have to format the partition with windows on it, because if so thats okay but if not i cant afford to lose all the s*** on the other partitions.

yea its probably just corrupted your boot partition. There are ways to fix it but this is most painfree option if you dont want to f*** around forever

So i can format just that partition, reinstall windows and it should be sweet? My other partitions will be untouched?

but if not i cant afford to lose all the s*** on the other partitions.

Anything you can't afford to lose must be backed up!

boot into recovery console and copy ntldr and ntdetect.com from the i386 folder on the cd to your c:\

How do i do that? I looked up something that told me to do that, could you explain a bit better sorry.

you have computer aids

http://forums.techarena.in/windows-xp-support/542555.htm

what epic said, will fix you up easy done.

Yeah but can you explain a little better how to do that, ive tried and it wasnt working. Please, nothing is working.

I had this problem a few times in the past. The solution was always to repair a corrupted boot file located in the first few bytes of the Hard drive that points to the files windows uses to boot itself.
The files are what the bios accesses at the initial boot, for information on what files to run and where they are located on the drive.

There is a start.

last edited by Lynx at 18:31:53 23/Nov/08

Fix your boot and master boot record in the windows repair console.

Sorry i appreciate all the help but im quite retarded when it comes to this stuff so could anyone explain a little better how to do what you are describing?

All help is greatly appreciated.

Are you running XP? if so chuck the cd in and boot from it. When it goes through the process it'll ask if you want to install windows or goto the repair console.

Ive done that, but when i get to the recovery console it doesnt ask me for my administrator password which people say it should and when i type in

copy f:\i386\ntldr c:\

and

copy f:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

It says something like "Invalid directory or file name.

full instructions here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318728
skip to method 2

type dir.. what drive are you on? whats the bit before where you type say?

c:> ??

yes epic it is c: and the link you gave me is for windows 2000, im running xp, there seems to be a few differences, like when it says type a number corresponding to the windows installation you want to repair and hit enter, that does nothing on windows xp.

Well it does for me with XP, DW.

all this pain

Your friend gave you a virus, format and be done with it.

vista? it has a repair op that works well.