xp won't start with 'ntldr is missing' error

[diebitter]

This all began with a boot, and at the start of the bios messages, there was something about 'zyz not interleaving' - I continue. Machine start okay. However, I reboot a few minutes later, and get the above! And get it over and over again.

However however, I find some utility that allows me to create a floppy (on a different machine) that allows me to boot by having 'boot.ini', 'ntldr', and 'ntdetect.com' on it.

I do manage to boot into windows xp professional with the floppy, but each time I do, I get a message about an unknown 'PCI device' to install. I sometimes cancel and I sometimes install without getting anywhere - however, the machine seems to work okay otherwise.

I've copied ntldr and ntdetect.com and boot.ini over those in the c:\ as some microsoft page recommended, but it's still stopping at the above message if I don't do it with the floppy.


Does this ring any bells with anyone - and can anyone suggest a cure?

It's an ASUS motherboard with a pentium 4, BTW.

tnx in advance

[Freakin]

j00 ar3 fux0red.

Start by booting off your boot disk that you made, and backing up ALL of your important [censored] on dvds or cds.

Then, try booting off a windows XP cd and going through their repair routine. With luck, it will replace the damaged/missing files.

If that still doesn't work, you can either manually try to replace files (which would be long & painful, and could be impossible) or you can reformat/reinstall windows.

It's possible that your harddrive is on its way out (not sure how old it is). If so, you'll be having more and more problems in the future.

If you reformat, whatever you do, don't do a quick format. Make sure you let it go through its paces. It's not a great scan, but it's better than nothing.

Freakin

[diebitter]

tnx bud.

The boot stopped working! - but thank goodness, I got a Symantic recovery disk, which has allowed me to get to the 2 hard drives on the machine - and I'm busy moving stuff from the windows-holding disk to the second one, so should get everything!

I could see this heading towards a rebuild...