NTLDR is missing

Hi just wondering if someone could help, i cant install windows server 2k3 on an old pc ive got. When it gets in to setup it just restarts? And if i leave it to boot from hard drive it says NTLDR is missing.

There is no OS installed and i have tried 2 different HD's and different IDE cables.

Thanks

 

could be a bad cd? try to boot it on a different PC?

 

dont think its the CD cause ive used it to install windows on another server and it worked fine, boots on my main pc as well.

 

Are the hard drives fully formatted / blank ?

 

Could be a bad BIOS or CD drive.

 

Yeh they are both formatted, NTFS.

Dont think its cd drive cos ive tryed it in both of the cd drive, but it could be the bios? What can i do about that?

Thanks guys

 

My friend had this problem, it turned out his dvd-rw was broken and all he had to do was unplug it and the error never came up again.

 

well, other than trying one cdrom at a time, you could try a low level format, that fixed a s.m.a.r.t. problem my friend was having where it would complain every time he booted windows, seems to help solve a lot of other wierd issues.

google dban (warning, if you use this, unplug ANY hard drives you DONT want erased... just for safety's sake)

 

This is actually a recurring problem in XP. There is a patch out there by M$ but they never fully realesed it, either you have to find it thru the Windows Knoledgebase or email them for a download.

I had this issue ages ago when i had IDE drives but they easiest solution was just to Format and re-install.

 

bump? Still havent managed to get this sorted

 

I had this when doing a BIOS upgrade it wouldnt boot from the CD, It was the disc I used.
Are you using a official disc or a "backup" of the disc?

 

oh riite, well my disk could be slightly dodgy

Ill try installing XP or something on it, thanks guys

 

i have the same problem, after a windows install i can't use my dvd drive