Old system was a MS ME that I down/upgraded to Windows 98SE. Replaced
crashed HD with new 80 GB drive. Am installing MS Windows XP Pro (w/ SP2) on
PIII 800MHz. At some point in process receive MS DOS message "NTLDR is
missing","Press any key to restart". Have tried a number of "solutions"
regarding this issue. None have worked ... or even begun to work. Have
"attempted" Recovery, booting from Windows 98SE start-up disk, fdisk, and
partition assignment. Do I need to upgrade my BIOS or what?

"ClearlyBefuddled" <ClearlyBefuddled@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:7CA35A6D-22E7-4A26-B9A2-81C7BF49EB8F@microsoft.com...
> Old system was a MS ME that I down/upgraded to Windows 98SE. Replaced
> crashed HD with new 80 GB drive. Am installing MS Windows XP Pro (w/ SP2)
on
> PIII 800MHz. At some point in process receive MS DOS message "NTLDR is
> missing","Press any key to restart". Have tried a number of "solutions"
> regarding this issue. None have worked ... or even begun to work. Have
> "attempted" Recovery, booting from Windows 98SE start-up disk, fdisk, and
> partition assignment. Do I need to upgrade my BIOS or what?

There is no downgrade path from WinME to Win98. Upgrading
from Win98 to WinXP is possible but often causes a number of
problems. With your previous "downgrade", who knows what
condition Win98 is in?

I recommend a clean installation of WinXP (after you have
backed up all your important data).

As stated in original inquiry have replace hard drive with new, larger
capacity, hard drive. This is a clean install (To clarify...system came
from factory with Windows ME and I had stability problems and HD crashed.
Installed a second HD and installed Windows 98SE as OS. Recently my 2nd HD
crashed. Data has been recovered and is presently residing on DVD. Have now
installed 3rd Hard Drive and am attempting to perform a "clean" install of MS
Windows XP Pro w/ SP2).

Should you return to original inquiry you will see that I have made several
approaches to arrive at a solution with no result(s). HELP!


"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:

>
> "ClearlyBefuddled" <ClearlyBefuddled@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
> message news:7CA35A6D-22E7-4A26-B9A2-81C7BF49EB8F@microsoft.com...
> > Old system was a MS ME that I down/upgraded to Windows 98SE. Replaced
> > crashed HD with new 80 GB drive. Am installing MS Windows XP Pro (w/ SP2)
> on
> > PIII 800MHz. At some point in process receive MS DOS message "NTLDR is
> > missing","Press any key to restart". Have tried a number of "solutions"
> > regarding this issue. None have worked ... or even begun to work. Have
> > "attempted" Recovery, booting from Windows 98SE start-up disk, fdisk, and
> > partition assignment. Do I need to upgrade my BIOS or what?
>
> There is no downgrade path from WinME to Win98. Upgrading
> from Win98 to WinXP is possible but often causes a number of
> problems. With your previous "downgrade", who knows what
> condition Win98 is in?
>
> I recommend a clean installation of WinXP (after you have
> backed up all your important data).
>
>
>

Can be caused by BIOS, as you would appear to have an 'old' sys try updating
bios first, then disconnect all 'extra' devices/hds. Try clean install
again.

"ClearlyBefuddled" <ClearlyBefuddled@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
message news:715BDA61-0FD4-4BED-B355-763D8861C55C@microsoft.com...
> As stated in original inquiry have replace hard drive with new, larger
> capacity, hard drive. This is a clean install (To clarify...system came
> from factory with Windows ME and I had stability problems and HD crashed.
> Installed a second HD and installed Windows 98SE as OS. Recently my 2nd
HD
> crashed. Data has been recovered and is presently residing on DVD. Have
now
> installed 3rd Hard Drive and am attempting to perform a "clean" install of
MS
> Windows XP Pro w/ SP2).
>
> Should you return to original inquiry you will see that I have made
several
> approaches to arrive at a solution with no result(s). HELP!
>
>
> "Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:
>
> >
> > "ClearlyBefuddled" <ClearlyBefuddled@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in
> > message news:7CA35A6D-22E7-4A26-B9A2-81C7BF49EB8F@microsoft.com...
> > > Old system was a MS ME that I down/upgraded to Windows 98SE. Replaced
> > > crashed HD with new 80 GB drive. Am installing MS Windows XP Pro (w/
SP2)
> > on
> > > PIII 800MHz. At some point in process receive MS DOS message "NTLDR
is
> > > missing","Press any key to restart". Have tried a number of
"solutions"
> > > regarding this issue. None have worked ... or even begun to work.
Have
> > > "attempted" Recovery, booting from Windows 98SE start-up disk, fdisk,
and
> > > partition assignment. Do I need to upgrade my BIOS or what?
> >
> > There is no downgrade path from WinME to Win98. Upgrading
> > from Win98 to WinXP is possible but often causes a number of
> > problems. With your previous "downgrade", who knows what
> > condition Win98 is in?
> >
> > I recommend a clean installation of WinXP (after you have
> > backed up all your important data).
> >
> >
> >

Some info:

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

A possible workaround might be to make a NT boot-diskette and see if that
gets things going.

If you've changed your partition-assignments it's very likely that the
BOOT.INI file no longer points to the correct system-partition, and that
could be your trouble.

Also possible that your BIOS doesn't recognise the 80GB disk properly, a lot
of machines of that vintage were limited to 32GB. However, that fact should
be apparent from DOS if it is the case.