PC Crashing after 3 days

w3bbo · 19 May 2008 at 09:01

Built a pc for a friend. Spec :

ECS 650i (needs dual PATA as he don't have SATA drives)
2gb Ballistix 5300
Q6600
8400GS
3 x 250gb drives
dvd writer

All stock settings.

The pc works fine, no problems at all then after 3 days crashes with missing NTDLR (XP). This has happened 4 times now promting a reboot and has got me bamboozled. It's ALWAYS after 3 days.

Checks done :
Memtest (3xPASS)
Prime 12hr (PASS)

Any ideas? Totally foxed here:cursing:

Uhtred · 19 May 2008 at 09:03

have you done a full scan on the hard disk with manufacturer tools?

w3bbo · 19 May 2008 at 09:22

Well he's dropping it off later so I'll give it a go, anything else?

Ethics · 19 May 2008 at 09:39

Any custom software that's messing with the MBR? anything running a boot time scan?

What does he do in the three days?

split · 19 May 2008 at 15:26

Pimped here...

What happened? (How NTLDR works and why your PC can't find it)
When your computer starts, the BIOS attempts to find the primary hard drive's active partition to read the first sector for the MBR (Master Boot Record), it uses that info to load the rest of the OS. For Windows NT4/2k/XP the MBR is pointed to the NTLDR (New Technology Loader) and it takes it from there. If you get the "NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart" what's most likely going on is the BIOS either didn't look for the right drive, didn't find the right partition, it wasn't active, didn't find the MBR, or the MBR didn't list NTLDR in the right place, the location of NTLDR changed, or you are looking at a hardware failure situation (memory/cables/drive/motherboard/etc).

The first thing to do is try to change back whatever hardware or software change you just made (this could be as simple as leaving a floppy disk in the drive or you need to reseat the cables). If the contents of the drive are especially important and you have no backups, I would recommend removing the hard drive, placing in an enclosure, and backing up the data first, in fact, backup all of your computers. (What if I made new changes that I want to keep?).

Admiral Huddy · 19 May 2008 at 15:32

following on from splits post.. I got a simular problem recently. Just kept getting this error.

Unplug all of the HDD except the one with the OS on. Does the problem go away? If so, add each drive back 1 by 1 making sure it's in a different sata connector than before and higher than the primary drive (which should be in SATA1).

I just put the other drives I had in sata 3 and 4 instead of 2 and 3 and the problem went. Weird problem.