How to fix NTLDR missing error in Vista?
Why do I get the dreaded “NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart” error?
At boot-up, the BIOS of your computer tries to locate the primary hard drive’s active partition to read the first sector for the Master Boot Record and uses that info to load the rest of the Operating System. In the earlier versions of Windows i.e Windows NT /Windows 2000 and Windows XP the MBR is pointed to the NTLDR or New Technology Loader. The “NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart” error can occur for a variety of reasons including when the BIOS didn’t look for the right drive, didn’t find the MBR, or the MBR didn’t list NTLDR in the right place or the location of NTLDR changed.
But Windows Vista does not use NTLDR
That is right. Windows Vista does not use NTLDR. Then why does Vista throw up the NTLDR missing error? According to the official microsoft site the NTLDR missing in Vista error can occur only if you have migrated from an earlier version of windows to Vista that too only when you have used some imaging software to install the earlier windows version.
How to fix NTLDR missing error in Vista
The official microsoft support center talks about the correct method for fixing this issue as well. The process mentioned on this page is quite self explanatory. Let me know if you have any doubts about the NTLDR is missing error and I shall help you out. BTW you may also like to read my explanation of difference between intel core2duo and dual core processors and how to format USB flash drive.
How to make pendrive bootable version of windows XP? That is to install XP from pendrive using USB boot.
I got the error message on vista 64 ultimate when a raid 0 drive crashed, and your article clearly only covers xp and before. perhaps you should read the context of your quotes prior to posting :I just a thought….
Untrue about only happening is you have migrated to a newer version from an older version. I got the error from a clean install of windows vista premium home and i’m still continuing to get it. I’ll get round to cleaning it up eventually but it is completely possible to get from a complete clean install of vista.
Hey,
I was having problems trying to reinstall vista on my machine as it was running ridiculously slow. don’t ask me why but i took the hard drive out of the laptop and plugged it into my desktop and formatted it!
now it keeps showing up with the NTLDR is missing thing. Please help!!!!
The problem is similar to “bootmgr is missing” The MBR(Master boot record)is the cause in Vista. You can create a Windows Vista repair disk. This is the link with all the info… http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/fixing-bootmgr-is-missing-error-while-trying-to-boot-windows-vista/
i have got ntldr is missing pless ctrl+alt+del to restart. i have a new harddrive with a new version of vista home basic. i also have another harddrive from my old computer that had xp on it. how do i fix? no computer techy
About a month ago, my laptop (with vista as OS) started acting up, giving me error messages such as “windows\system32\boot\winload.exe missing or corrupt” as well as “windows\system32\stsem missing”. I tried everything I could in vain, and I decided to go ahead and format my hard drive, through another computer using an enclosure kit since I couldn’t even get into safe mode or any other mode without getting the error screen right away. I seemed that the problem was getting worst as I restarted my computer.
As I mentioned above, I formatted my disc, thus lost all data, hoping to be able to install a clean version of VISTA. I reinstall my hard drive in the laptop, and just to make a quick test, I started the computer without the VISTA DVD in and I got the error “NTLDR is missing Press CTRL+Alt+Del to restart”, and wondering what that was about, I looked it up on the internet, and most people seemed to say that error message was a typical windows XP type of error. But I never had XP on this computer. So I didn’t do anything about and put the VISTA DVD in the drive and restarted the computer. I got the message “press any key to boot from CD or DVD…” When I didn’t push any button, I got the error message “NTLDR is missing Press CTRL+Alt+Del to restart”, and then I restarted it and pushed a key to boot it from the VISTA DVD. I then got the “windows is loading files” screen. Once it was done loading files, it went straight to the error screen “Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause …windows\system32\boot\winload.exe missing or corrupt … status 0×0000001…”.
At this point I really don’t know what to do, and I’m totally confused, since my hard drive is totally empty and I still get those error messages.
Please help
The linked article from Microsoft covers XP and below, NOT vista, BTW.
my wife has a dell inspiron, intel dual-core, running vista.
my three old year had a magnet around it today.
Now it is saying “NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart”
What do I do?
I was able to run the windows repair feature and it could not repair it. It said it was missing the BootManager.