By David Omar (Contributed)

Experiencing ‘NTLDR is missing’ error message is very stressful not only because it prevents us in doing our job, but it also leaves us with little room to recover. The error makes Windows fails to boot and thus forces us to make a recovery process that only geeks know how. But with little patience and understanding, you can just fix it using only the Windows XP CD you have.

"NTLRD is missing error" happens when Windows cannot find the specified file. NTLDR itself stands for ‘New Technology Loader’ and it stores information about the primary hard drive’s active partition. In order to load Windows, your computer needs to know the information about Master Boot Record (MBR) including which sector it starts so that it can load the rest of the OS from there. In Windows XP, the MBR points to NTLDR. And when it is missing, your computer is incapable of booting the OS up.

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There are so many reasons why the error happens and it could be either the file is really missing or the system cannot find the right path. This can be caused by minor changes to your hardware configuration like adding an additional drive or by major system problems like hardware failure. Whatever it is, if you have important files in the hard drive, the first thing you should do when you encounter this problem is to backup the content of your hard drive if it has not been done already. The next step you should take is to try some possible recovery. In this article, I will guide you to fix this problem by copying the necessary files directly from your Windows XP CD. This is only an alternative from several others solution that you can take when you encounter such problem.

1. Prepare your Windows XP CD, load it into your CD drive, and let it boots.

2. If it does not load automatically, set your first boot sequence to your CD Drive. If you do not know how to do it, just go to your BIOS, usually you can access the menu by pressing ‘Del’ or ‘F2′ key at the first screen when your computer start.

3. Wait for a moment until Windows loads all necessary files and drivers.

4. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, click ‘R’ button on your keyboard to start the Recovery Console. Basically, this is a Dos-based console where you can conduct some useful commands.

5. After the command prompt appears, type these commands: COPY X:i386NTLDR C: COPY X:i386NTDETECT.COM C: The X symbol represents your CD Rom Drive letter, so you should change it with yours.

6. You are done. The files needed to load your Windows have just been copied to your hard drive. Now take your Windows XP CD out from the drive and type EXIT. This will restart your computer. Wait and see if it works.

Remember to always back up your system and your important files in the hard drive. Also consider to have an emergency repair software. This kind of software has the ability to boot up your computer in case it fails. From there, you can run many individual recovery tools it provides like disk backup and cloning, Windows password recovery, file recovery, partition manager, file transfer, and other additional tools.

My recommendation is Spotmau PowerSuite 2009. Although its individual tools are not as good as most software that are specialized for one single task like Norton Ghost or Acronis Disk Director, as an all-in-one Windows recovery software Spotmau PowerSuite 2009 offers lots more critical features that are absence in other software.

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