My system just died horribly... HELP!

Ok computer geniuses of ATS, your skills are needed...

Yesterday everything fine, a few random beeps from hard drives etc, but all good.

Turned the system off last night, came back on today, and when it gets to the 'boot from cd/dvd' bit, it just sits there for a minute, then comes up with something like NTLDR missing. Press Alt+Ctrl+Del to reboot.

Reboot, then the same. So being somewhat computer savvy, I tried reinstalling Windows (7, 32 bit Home Premium). The normal HDD I install to comes up, but, it says it cannot be installed to as it is not a bootable disk, and I should check my BIOS settings to ensure it is a working or something disk.

My suspicion is the HDD is cactus.

Any help or insight would be much appreciated.

Sounds like the HDD is dying.

First thing i would do it open up the computer, detach the hard drive, then reattach everything snugly and try again.

Wouldnt hurt to check the BIOS to see if it is recognizing the drive or not.

reply to post by 74Templar


Don't know if this will help or not. It sounds like there are multiple reasons why that message could pop up:

How to Fix NTLDR is Missing

Sounds like you have some bugs in your system, for that I would call terminex.

74Templar

My suspicion is the HDD is cactus.

Any help or insight would be much appreciated.

I think you'll find that your suspicions are correct. Probably bad sectors on your drive which is why it lost NTLDR in the first place.

I've just pulled the case apart to find a stick of RAM sitting on the floor which wouldn't have helped matters.

In addition the wiring loom to the HDD had two loose wires. I swapped it out for a complete one, and put the RAM back in. Managed to get to the loading screen, the BIOS and computer recognise the HDD there, but it is split into two partitions and Windows cannot be installed on either. All it says is check the log file for more information, which I can't access anyway.

Will try and swap out the HDD tomorrow and see if it fixes the problem.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

reply to post by 74Templar


Damn, do you use it for a soccer ball when you're not using it for a computer????

That's a lot of physical issues for a machine that just basically sits in one place most of the time. RAM doesn't just fall out unless it was never clipped in place to start with and wires shouldn't get loose unless they are being pulled on.

But anyway, the two partitions are pretty common nowadays. One is probably a lot smaller than the other and isn't going to show up normally, or have a drive letter. It holds the files needed to reload your machine back to factory original. MAKE SURE YOU DON'T REMOVE IT. The other larger partition is where your system files are and your personal stuff and shows up as your C drive. This is probably how things are set up, but it could be different so don't take my word for sure without checking first. If it is set up like that though, there should be a way to go to a boot menu from the start, right after BIOS posts, and will give you the option of reloading the machine, but also might have some software that will check out you HDD to verify it's in working order. You might try that first.

Good Luck.

Try having your laptop screen show every black colour red, and when playing a video, it looks like a big red pixelated mess, I have gave up hope with mine, it's now just a laptop for ATS and other sites only, i have to resort to the PS3 for videos.

pcsupport.about.com...

Good place to start.. some times it can be the MBR is corrupted and needs to be fixed.

some people have fixed by turning off quick boot in the bios..?

After all that it seems to be the HDD that has given out. For some reason it is there, but won't allow Windows to be installed on any partition.

Swapped it for another HDD before, and it started up fine, allowed me to install Windows and started up again ok.

I'm not sure what else was wrong other than that, but it seems to be running for now.

Thanks everyone for the help.

74Templar
After all that it seems to be the HDD that has given out. For some reason it is there, but won't allow Windows to be installed on any partition.

Swapped it for another HDD before, and it started up fine, allowed me to install Windows and started up again ok.

I'm not sure what else was wrong other than that, but it seems to be running for now.

Thanks everyone for the help.

Make sure you backup regularly so you can recover. There may have been an issue with your HDD but that doesn't mean it was the issue you think it was and there may be another cause. Happy to hear you got up and running again.

It could be the hard drive, or it could be a virus. In moments like this, I'd have a back up downloaded linux live cd, two actually, such as mint linux and pclinuxos. And go to the live boot. Change in the booting order at the beginning, to load from cd/dvd first, and hard drive second.

Also, when reinstalling windows, often it doesnt wipe it clean. I never like the job windows does. If its a virus, usually you still have the virus.

So, what I do, is use the petitioning tool on the live linux cd and go to install it, but format it for windows first. Sometimes I will first install the linux on that partition, but not update it, go back and reformat for windows. And anything hiding on the cd will be clean, so the windows will be very fresh install.

Also its good to have both windows and linux, if you only use linux for emergencies, it doesnt need much room, say 30 gigs.

edit to add: see you got a new hard drive. But before anything happens again, might be good to go to pclinuxos's site, and mint linux's one, and download their most current ones to burn off on, you need to burn them raw. I think they recommend a good program as well to do that. They save alot of investigational work. Make sure you get the 32 or 64 bit you need and in a choice between kde or gnome, I prefer kde.

It probably wont be a virus as they usually work at the operating system level which doesn't come into play until an operating system is loaded.

You can repair the NTLDR using commandline but it seems you have gone past that part as you have tried to re-install already.

Most people dont realize you should destroy all the existing partitions before trying to install windows as this wipes out any errors in the partition tables.

So for re-installing
When you attempt to re-install windows make sure after you get the part that asks you if you want 'upgrade' or 'custom' (you will be choosing custom) you will get to a part that will give you an option that says drive options(advanced)

click on drive options(advanced) and then delete all the partitions on the disk until you just have a single entry in the table that says "disk 0 unallocated space". This should have wiped out all the partition tables and give you a clean disk to install to.



Don't listen to the lynux fanbois as they will sense you frustration and try to pull you over to the dark side. lol

xDeadcowx
Sounds like the HDD is dying.

Or the bios battery has died causing an automatic boot into default mode which would maybe not recognise the HD under standard settings.

reply to post by 74Templar


Go into your BIOS settings when the computer boots up. Go into the section where it shows your hardware like the hardrive. If a hardrive doesn't show up as detected then your hardrive might of died. If it does show up go into your boot priority and set your hardrive as primary boot device first on the list. Also make sure you dont have any removeable hardware plugged into your computer like a flash drive or a bootable dvd disc in your dvd rom drive.

If your still having problems booting up just reset factory defaults and save it in BIOS. If none of that works I would have to say your hardrive is dead. It happens to the best of them.