NTLDR is missing error after Slack 10.1 install on brand new HD

azwxman · 02-16-2007, 04:51 PM

Hello,

I am one of the lucky folks who is being shown the "NTLDR is missing, Press cntrl alt del to restart" error. The odd thing is I am getting this message after installing a brand new hard drive and installing only Slackware 10.1 on it. No RAID or anything fancy.

Computer specs are:

DFI Lanparty MB
AMD Athlon 64 3000 2.0gz
1 200GB ATA/100 Maxtor hard drive
1GB DDR 400 RAM
Memorex CD/DVD combo burner
etc etc..

A real simple system. I did have this error before on my old dual boot system. I figured using a brand new hard drive would get rid of the error, but it did not. LILO was not able to install to the MBR when I tried to install it. I can only boot into Slack using a boot disk.

Does anyone have any advice or idea how to fix this problem (and what caused it)? I have researched online, but I only seem to find evidence of a Windows OS causing this error. In this case that is not possible.

Thank you,

PJ

swampdog2002 · 02-16-2007, 05:00 PM

It seems as if the MBR on the new hard drive is somehow attempting to load Windows. Had you formatted the drive with the manufacturer's software utility prior to installing Slackware on it? Usually, this sort of error is caused when something such as the boot.ini for Windows is missing. If LILO fails to install correctly to the MBR, you could try to use a Windows boot disk to issue the command:

fdisk /mbr

but I do not know what type of results this would yield in your situation. Another instance would be to wipe the MBR with some sort of zero write utility, even perhaps using the "dd" command in Linux. I am not too proficient in this area, but I believe there to be tools available to do this for you, and configure it to wipe just the MBR, and not the entire drive.

azwxman · 02-16-2007, 05:36 PM

I did not install anything on the hard drive. It went from the box to the computer...I booted up with the Slackware CD first thing.

Thank you for your advice. I will keep trying everything I can think of.

PJ

drumz · 02-16-2007, 05:43 PM

Try installing Lilo again and give the exact error. Right now every suggestion is a shot in the dark.

swampdog2002 · 02-16-2007, 05:59 PM

Do you have another drive in addition to this new one hooked up to your system? If so, it sounds as if the existing drive is set to be a primary master, and that your BIOS is set to boot from this device first. If you have your new drive set up as a secondary master, this could be causing this to occur. Can you set your BIOS to boot from the new drive and see what happens?