• "NTLDR is missing" after unplugging secondary HDD
    11 replies, posted
Guys I'm on my father's computer right now. I'm trying to reinstall Windows on mine. In the past, I've been told to unplug my secondary for safety reasons. So I got all of my stuff backed up, turned off my computer, and removed the two cables to my SATA drive. When I booted my computer up, right after POST, it has "NTLDR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" It does this everytime I do. Tried to plug back in the cables and it's still doing it. Please help me! The last two times I did this, both my drives were IDE. I never had to deal with this before. I'm scared and I don't know what to do.
You don't have to unplug it. Makes no difference. Since you're installing windows you don't need NTLDR as when you install Windows it'll create a new bootloader if NTLDR isn't found..
In the past when both drives where IDE, I was afraid it would format the secondary drive or something.\ The guy that built it told me to just unplug it, and that will take care of that problem. I tried to go back into Windows to verify it was unplugged, but now I can't with this issue.
Well Windows gives you the option as to what disk to install to. WinPE 1.0 and prior aren't as clear but it works. But now just leave it unplugged and install to the primary and hook up the second one afterwards.
Go into the BIOS and set the boot order to CD-ROM first, then reboot with the windows install disc in the drive. Sounds to me like you had RAID or something setup and windows was installed across the two drives. So either you have to do as I said in the first sentence or plug the drive back in, two HDD never hurt anyone.
[QUOTE=Benie;19595498]I tried to go back into Windows to verify it was unplugged[/QUOTE] Why do you need Windows to tell you it's unplugged? :confused:
Ok, guys.. I got another problem. Back on my computer. The Windows reinstall went smoothly to say the least and it did fix the NTLDR error, but since doing this, my drives have been... switched. It thinks my E drive(now D), is my Main drive, and my Games drive, is now the Main drive. But not actually. You see I named my E drive as Games, and my C drive (that has Windows on it), to Main. But now it shows; C: Games D: Main I went into BIOS, checked the Hard Drive boot priority, and it shows it is supposed to use the C drive as Main, and my secondary as games.. but Windows has reversed my drives.
I assume you installed with the second drive plugged in? It can be a little unpredictable how the Windows installer assigns drive letters to multiple SATA drives. I think it does it by SATA port number (i.e. SATA0 gets C, SATA1 gets D, etc) but don't quote me on this. Anyway, it's not going to affect anything, programs will install to the D drive the same as they would to the C drive. But if it bothers you, the only way to fix it is to unplug the second drive and reinstall Windows.
As I have explained, the C (Main) drive, the one with Windows on it, is the IDE (or ATA, not sure) one. And the E (Games) drive, is the SATA one. But yes, it does bug me. I was thinking of reinstalling again, but I fear I'll get another "NTLDR is missing" error once I plug the SATA drive back in. Seems to be another thing. Not only did it swap my drive numbers, it swapped my files between drives. My games on the E drive got moved to the C drive. If I was to format the partition for Windows, I would've wiped out my backup data. Along with all of my games. :byodood: This is a problem. Windows got installed to the wrong damn drive. I do have an external hard drive. I can move my backup to it, but I also need to remove the possible Windows install duplicate on my E drive.
Now you've got me totally confused. Let me see if I've got this straight: - You have a SATA drive called Games, it used to have the drive letter E but now has the letter C - You have an IDE drive called Main which used to be C but now is D, this is where you installed Windows Is that right? If so then nothing was swapped between the drives, Windows simply switched around the drive letters. If you want your Main (IDE) drive to have the drive letter C then you have to unplug your SATA drive and reinstall Windows, and don't worry about the NTLDR error. Then when you're finished installing, plug your Games (SATA) drive back in and Windows will assign it a new drive letter, probably D or E.
Ok.. here we go again. I FINALLY got Windows installed on the correct drive! The C drive. The IDE. But now, Windows doesn't reconize my SATA drive (my secondary drive) anymore. I believe it was when I tried to tell it to "format the partition" of both drives to attempt to fix this mess. In BIOS, the drive is there. And according to my Computer Management thingy, the drive is also there, but is listed as Unallocated. I think a reformat through DOS should fix this, but I forgot how to.
In Disk Management right click the Unallocated space and click New Simple Volume. Follow the wizard (click ok until it goes away).
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.