NTLDR missing (need USB flash boot files for acronis 11)

[excexe]

my situation is this:

i have a hardrive with three partitions: a, b, and c. partition "a" contained the OS. partition "b" contains the back up images. i did not check the option to restore the mbr (i did not know) when restoring one of the images to "a." the result was an "NTLDR missing" error after the POST. because of this i cannot boot into the OS.

before the fiasco i did not create an emergency boot disk (sigh). so i'm looking for an acronis 11 bootable .TIB image (with mbr) that i can restore to a 512MB usb flash drive. i will use this to restore my system back to normal.

and yes, i have a valid acronis 11 key (just installed yesterday). i'd really appreciate the help. happy holidays everyone.

[Brian K]

excexe,

See..

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm

The first thing would be to check your boot.ini with EditBINI

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=130

Your problem has nothing to do with failing to restore the MBR.

[excexe]

-{ Quote: "
Your problem has nothing to do with failing to restore the MBR." }-

thanks for the reply. but are you sure? according to your 1st link:

[Possible causes of the NTLDR missing error]:
Computer is booting from a non-bootable source.
Computer hard disk drive is not properly setup in BIOS.
Corrupt NTLDR and/or NTDETECT.COM file.
Misconfiguration with the boot.ini file.
Attempting to upgrade from a Windows 95, 98, or ME computer that is using FAT32.
New hard disk drive being added.
Corrupt boot sector / master boot record.
Seriously corrupted version of Windows 2000 or Windows XP.
Loose or Faulty IDE/EIDE hard disk drive cable.

btw, after using a windows 98 startup disk (via bootable flash drive), i was able to get into DOS. entering "dir" shows that no system files are on any of my partitions. so i guess the files that were restored without an MBR are now lost in space--literally. in any case--corrupt MBR or missing MBR--i'm hoping that restoring the image will help, as all images i created were verified after completion.

[Brian K]

I know that list has a MBR entry. But really you never have to restore the MBR with a TI restore (unless you have a special MBR containing a boot manager) because TI creates a MBR if you don't tick the Restore MBR option. So a MBR is there whether you want it or not. In fact your HD already had a MBR so you should not tick Restore MBR.

You mentioned a DOS boot disk. I don't think DOS can see NTFS files so I'm not surprised you can't see boot files. If you use that EditBINI CD, it will see a NTFS boot.ini. You can put EditBINI on your bootable flash drive too.

You can quickly write a MBR (boot code) if you are worried. From the A: prompt of your Win 98 floppy, type fdisk /mbr and press Enter.

Do you have a BartPE CD?

[excexe]

-{ Quote: "I know that list has a MBR entry. But really you never have to restore the MBR with a TI restore (unless you have a special MBR containing a boot manager) because TI creates a MBR if you don't tick the Restore MBR option. So a MBR is there whether you want it or not. In fact your HD already had a MBR so you should not tick Restore MBR.

You mentioned a DOS boot disk. I don't think DOS can see NTFS files so I'm not surprised you can't see boot files. If you use that EditBINI CD, it will see a NTFS boot.ini. You can put EditBINI on your bootable flash drive too.

You can quickly write a MBR (boot code) if you are worried. From the A: prompt of your Win 98 floppy, type fdisk /mbr and press Enter.

Do you have a BartPE CD?" }-

i'm sorry for being such a noob. again, thank you for enlightening me with your expertise. i will look further into the EditBINI CD. and no, i do not have a BartPE CD and nor do i know what that is--so i'll look into that well.

[Brian K]

-{ Quote: "i'm sorry for being such a noob. " }-
We've all been there.

Just copy EditBINI.exe to your bootable flash drive. Boot to the drive and at the prompt type editbini and press Enter.

It's self explanatory. Basically you are changing the number in partition(1). So try
partition(1)
partition(2)
partition(3)
before deciding if it does or doesn't work. Two edits are required for each boot.ini

[excexe]

-{ Quote: "Just copy EditBINI.exe to your bootable flash drive. Boot to the drive and at the prompt type editbini and press Enter.

It's self explanatory. Basically you are changing the number in partition(1). So try
partition(1)
partition(2)
partition(3)
before deciding if it does or doesn't work. Two edits are required for each boot.ini" }-

from the first link in your first post, i found out that TI did not backup three important root (c:\) files: ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini. i sucessfully recovered the first two from the xp cd and rebuilt the latter by following the intructions you linked me to.

this solved the problem, but i'm concerned that TI might do this again. why did it miss them after 4 incremental backups? even between those backups i was able to boot into windows flawlessly, meaning that those files were there when i did the backups. i even mounted each backup to check for the files and they weren't there.

after restoring the files, i created another incremental backup. i mounted the image and the files were there. the only thing i did differently was tick "Use commands set by default" in the pre/post commands. i don't know if this did anything.

thanks again, brian.

TI 11 build 8053

edit: i installed the TI 11 trial on another pc to make the bootable recovery disk (duh, why didn't i think of that earlier!).

[Brian K]

excexe,

I disagree with you conclusion. I think the problem was only with boot.ini and not the other two files. Rebuilding boot.ini fixed your computer. Unfortunately by not using editBINI you don't know why boot.ini referenced the wrong partition. If it happens again could you tell us which partition is referenced in boot.ini and which MBR Entry that partition is in.

It's no big deal. This happens not infrequently with your early restores if you have multiple partitions and you should be able to fix it in two minutes.

All 3 files were there, just boot.ini was incorrect.

-{ Quote: "i installed the TI 11 trial on another pc to make the bootable recovery disk" }-
Didn't you do the first restore with the TI CD?

-{ Quote: "i even mounted each backup to check for the files and they weren't there." }-
Did you unhide Protected Operating System Files? You can't see them unless you do this.

[excexe]

-{ Quote: "Didn't you do the first restore with the TI CD?
Did you unhide Protected Operating System Files? You can't see them unless you do this." }-

no, i did not do the first restore. my mistake. and i'm 85% sure i unhid protected files under folder options. the other 15% comes from you mentioning it--and now i just have to make sure (my OCD side). but i remember mounting previous backups and not seeing the files. without changing anything, after the last backup the files were there. but who knows, i may be making this up on accident. i'll check again. if they exist, i'll extract the files and i'll reply with the code.

[Brian K]

Thanks. I'm interested in what you find.

[DwnNdrty]

"Ntldr missing" used to be a fairly common problem around ver 8. and the oddity was the file was not missing at all. I don't how far back you can search in the forum but try and see if anything comes up.