Formated and Clean HD won't Boot OS

C

Chicago_Nole

New Member
Hi everyone!
I'm having an issue and although I've found a plethora of insightful and helpful resources online, I cannot for the life of me find one that matches my exact issue. Hopefully someone can assist.
My computer info- Hp DV2025nr laptop. Windows XP. 120 gb hd. As with most newer computers, I did not receive the set-up cds with the computer, but I do have a partition on the HD that can be accessed to restore the factory settings. I was lucky to make backup cds on the first day I brought my computer home.
The other day, all of a sudden- computer shuts off. ummm ok I thought. So I turned it back on and it booted up and shut off immediately. Weird. I turned it on again- nothing.
I ran the HD test through the BIOS it failed. I used F11 to run the restore off the partition- it failed.
I have (and forgive me for not knowing the correct name) the sata to USB cables. I pulled out the HD and connected to another computer. In "My computer" up pops the, well 2 drives. (One for the main partition and the other for recovery partition.)
I used to be able to open the main partition to copy files and such, but it says that this disk is not formated.
So I formated it.
Now my HD is clean with 99 Gigs of nothingness, followed by the recovery partition.
So I put the drive back into the HP and ran the recovery partition. It said it was a success! Great I thought. So I started it and it said Missing NTLDR..Then for the next 4 hours I tried with no luck, various online methods of combating this issue. One of the solutions found on Hp’s website ended up making a 1 gb partition at the end of the drive with a boot.ini file on it…ugh..didn’t work.

So again, I reformatted the main 99 gig partition again. It is completely empty, much like a new usb drive would look.

Would someone be kind enough to supply me with a simple step by step to get xp running again? I will not be insulted if there is a link to a previous thread.

Many thanks!
 
The first thing to have looked at there was the problem with the laptop immediately shutting off as a battery or hardware problem not a problem with XP. Removing the drive wasn't the solution for that. On the older model if the board has a weak or dead battery used for maintaining the cmos or a board fault or even a problem with the hinge switch for the lcd display like wear those are more likely.

The set of recovery disks you made up may not have been complete or you simply saw only a partial install when attempting to get Windows back on. The missing ntldr message is common with XP being one of the boot files found at the root of the hard drive itself when a working copy of Windows is on.

With the average full install disk and maybe still with one of the recovery disks you made up you can manually expand the NTLDR as well as the NTDETECT.com files to the hard drive by first booting up with the recovery disk #1 and pressing R for repairing Windows at the recovery instead of pressing the enter key for the install now option. That will bring you right to the recovery console itself which appears as a dos type command window.

Once at the console you simply type in "copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\" and
"copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\" with the E drive letter being replaced by the actual one there being D most likely. Make sure the boot order in the bios see cd rom as the first item however and press enter when seeing the "press any key to boot from cd..." message come up on the screen.

Note if you are unable to see Windows reinstalled by manually insuring those files are on the drive and all setup files needed are copied over from the disk set you made up you would most likely simply need to buy a full OEM disk to save on a retail tag and download drivers needed from the support site. The recovery partition would then be no longer usable with a brand new disk.
 
Check if the partition is active by using a partition program such as partition magic or GParted. If it is not set as active it wont boot until you set it as active.
 
Thanks guys.

First to PC Eye- The recovery disks have been used a handful of times in the past and I know they work. I was, unfortunately unable to do:

Once at the console you simply type in "copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\" and
"copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\" with the E drive letter being replaced by the actual one there being D most likely. Make sure the boot order in the bios see cd rom as the first item however and press enter when seeing the "press any key to boot from cd..." message come up on the screen.

becuase it says those files are not on the disk..which might be understandable as the disks are HP and contains all the junk etc...

Can't I just copy those files from another computer, put them on a usb and copy them to my HD?
I found on HPs website- the correct boot.ini text.

My next question...and a very important one...My C drive has no MBR...at least I dont think it does...how would I know...How can I create one?..should I do it before I run the recovery?

Should I copy the ntldr and ntdect.com before the recovery or after?

And Hugh- yes both partitions are active.

Thanks
 
Those are standard MS files and the expand command at the recovery console with any files is simply to see them extracted from a compressed archive. You can go ahead and try copying them from the root of another XP system to see if that works by itself.

The mbr entries are likely still present since any there simply point to the boot loader being the ntldr which then reads the information in the boot.ini file. When using the recovery disks you made up that will simply see new entries replace the original there. The Windows installer itself sees to that as well as if you should been to use the "Fixboot" and "Fixmbr" commands at some point while at the recovery console.
 
I decided to try the recovery cds again. 2 hours later it said success!

I restarted the computer, I see the HP logo and then. pssbbbbtt, it shuts off again....

now it beeps 11 times at me....
 
Hardware alert! A constant series of beeps points at either the cpu or memory on most systems. And that is likely a good 90% of the problems you are seeing. It could also be a board related problem to consider as well.

UPDATE: I couldn't find anything quite yet on that model while another saw upto 7 beeps not 11 with 7 pointing at the board. The detailed installation guide yet to find at HP would have it's own beep code chart. But it does suggest one of the three items mentioned here.
 
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