Argh! What just happened?

[benjo]

Hey all,

I was sat on my pc about 5 minutes ago, listening to some music. For no apparently reason, my pc froze.. (hardly ever does this) my music was skipping, mouse froze.. and then my pc restarted itself.

Upon boot i got an error message:

"NTLDR Is missing, Press Ctr+Alt+Del to restart"

Now i can remember this error message from when i was building a server pc out of some scrap pc parts. I got it when the hdd wasnt plugged in.

I went to my pc and checked out all the cables, re-moved ide-cables and replaced them etc. But i still get the same message.

The hard drive in question is a Maxtor 80gb IDE (says it all?) I'm guessing its dead.. and i've lost all my stuff? LUCKILY i read a thread about backing up, so i copied my documents onto another 80gb maxtor lol.. well atleast its backed up.

So does anyone know whats happened here?

 

[benjo]

Does your bios still see the drive during POST? Also, are you running your comp overclocked or at stock speeds?

Well during post where it checks the memory, it can detect the slave drive.. but no master. For some reason i cant get into bios..

And my pc is running stock cpu speeds on spec in my sig

 

[benjo]

So do you lot reckon its dead? I need to know really because i'm going to the ocuk shop this weekend.. looks like i'll need a hdd now..

 

[benjo]

I had this the other day.

Use the XP CD to get to RECOVER mode.

Get to the Dos Prompt after logging on, use blank password.

Search google and find the command to rebuilt the boot file.
It's something like bootcfg /rebuild

If this doesn't work, manually delete the boot.ini file beforehand on your HD and then rebuild it.

Good luck!

Hey thanks for the help. It could work, but to me it seems more hassle than its worth. I've got back ups of my stuff, so i dont think i'll trust another maxtor hdd. I'll be getting a hitachi drive this weekend.. should be more reliable