My Stupid PC

[Arminius H O Fiddywinks]

Ok, so my PC is simply not working. When I turn it on, it goes up to a black screen saying "NTLDR is missing". The line under that says "Press CTRL+ALT+Del to restart". However, whenever I do that and restart the PC, the black screen once again comes back on, saying the exact same thing.

Does anyone have any idea on what this means?

[Arashikage]

Alright, the NTLDR is missing problem usually means your MFT root folder is fragmented or damaged.  In order to fix this, you'll need to get a boot disk for your OS, and then type /Bcupdate2.exe C: /F into the command prompt when you have Windows up.  It'll then run an update utility, and should fix it.  However, if this is a Windows XP computer, instead of making a boot disk and going through all this trouble, I'd recommend just getting Windows 7.

[DZComposer]

It could also mean the HDD is toast. I'd run a HDD diagnostic tool as well.

[Arminius H O Fiddywinks]

Layman's Terms, please. I'm not experienced at all in this stuff.

[CrypticQuery]

Something in your operating system royally fucked up, or your hard drive is on its last legs. 

Assuming that you're running Windows, you'll need an installation disc (or bootable flash drive described below) to boot from since you can't boot from your hard drive.  (If you're using XP, it would be best to just purchase a Windows 7 disc and install that instead.)  You can try to repair your installation from the disc/bootable flash drive, but if that doesn't work you'll need to just reinstall.  Once you've reinstalled and booted to Windows from the installation disc, open Command Prompt and follow Arashikage's instructions.  (Don't forget to run Windows Update and reinstall your drivers as well; you'll have quite a few updates to download.)

If you are using Windows 7 already and still have your Windows product key (usually found on a colored sticker on the back of prebuilt desktop cases or on the bottom of laptops), you can use Microsoft's software recovery tool to download Windows 7 and either burn it to a disc or create a USB-bootable version on a flash drive.  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-recovery

In order to check the functionality of your hard drive (to make sure that it's not just going to corrupt), you can run chkdsk.  Go to My Computer or Computer, right click on the hard drive that you want to check, click Properties, and click on the Tools tab.  Then click Check Now under the Error-Checking section.  Check both boxes and click Start.  It won't be able to scan the drive while it's in use, so schedule the scan for the next boot.  Then make sure to remove the Windows installation disc so that your computer will try to boot from its hard drive.  Alternatively, you could use other HDD diagnostic software.  Free programs can be found here; http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/tophddiag.htm.

(DZ and Kage, does that about sum it up?)

Edited April 12, 2015 by OneUnder

[Sideways]

I'd say that's a pretty good explanation. 

[CrypticQuery]

Thanks, Sideways.

I forgot to mention; in case you don't know what hardware is inside of your computer, and therefore don't know what drivers to download once you reinstall windows, use CPU-Z to identify your components (i.e. motherboard, graphics card, wireless card, etc).  http://www.cpuid.com/downloads/cpu-z/cpu-z_1.72-en.exe

Newegg also has a great step-by-step video on installing Windows, drivers, and using Windows Update.  They do it on a new build, but it's basically the same when you're reinstalling/repairing from a PC that isn't able to boot.

Edited April 13, 2015 by OneUnder