Hello,

I have a Compaq Presario SR1214NX that will not boot. Until recently, the computer ran fine with two internal hard drivers installed, but then I started getting the message "NTLDR IS MISSING PRESS CTRL-ALT-DEL TO RESTART". In the past, this meant my hard drive boot order had somehow gotten reversed, so correcting the boot order solved the problem, but not this time.

I have verified that the boot drive has the correct boot order, verified the master / slave setting of the boot drive, and verified that this drive is in the top position of the ribbon. I have even removed the secondary drive and tried to boot the PC using only the boot drive, but now I get the message "A DISK READ ERROR OCCURRED PRESS CTRL-ALT-DEL TO RESTART.

I've placed the boot drive into an external drive box, and I am able to access the drive contents using my friend's laptop just fine, so the drive appears to be functioning normally.

Out of desperation, I ordered a restore CD from Compaq and tried to boot the pc this way. The software loads fine, and I get the messages "HARD DRIVE Preparation, PLEASE WAIT", followed by, "USER PARTITION NOT FOUND. USER PARTITION WILL BE CREATED AND THE ORIGINAL FACTORY SHIPPED FILES WIL LBE RECOVERED TO THE USER PARTITION". After I click OK, I get another message saying, "CANNOT CREATE USER PARTITION RECOVERY CANNOT CONTINUE". After Clicking OK, the system ejects the restore cd, and attempts to reboot.

I thought the drive my have been corrupted, so I bought and formatted a new drive to try a compete restore using the CD, but the same thing happens with this drive.

CAN ANYONE OFFER ANY SUGGESTIONS?

Thanks for your help.

Ok, there could be a couple problems. One, it could be that your CMOS battery because your settings on you Mobo, motherboard, are not saving. But if that's not the case then I would have to hazzard a guess that it may be your mobo itself.

I only think this because the hard drives work in other computers, a new hard drive doesn't work in your computer and this leads me to believe that your IDE/SATA, depending on what you're using, controller is bad. I'm not really sure though it's kind of hard to diagnose from what you said. My two cents though.

Hi,

Here is something for you to try asuming you are running a windows operating system.

Get a floppy disk. Go to another PC running windows and go to the drive that contains the operating system(most likely the C drive).

Next make sure you can view hidden files and operating system files.
To do this:

1. Go to the tools menu when you are at the C drive
2. select folder options
3. select the view tab
4. click the show hidden files and folders button
5. clear the hide protected operating system files button

Next go back to the C drive(operating system drive) and copy these files to the floppy disk:

1. NTLDR
2. BOOT.INI
3. NTDETECT.COM

You now have a bootable floppy disk. Go to the "broken" computer. Make sure the floppy drive is the first one in your boot order. Insert the floppy disk and start the computer. The operating system should start. Next copy the files from the floppy disk to the operating systems drive (C drive).

Note... if your computer does not have a floppy drive you can also try a CD for this process.