Ntldr Missing After Copying File To Root Folder

To achieve fast data access, NTFS organizes all the names of files in a special way. The file names and sub directories are first sorted by MFT record of the directory and then preserved in the index root attribute. However, if you mistakenly copy too many files to the root folder of boot volume, system may fail to boot. This makes all the data inaccessible and to restore the lost information, you require using your recent data backup. But if data backup is damaged, not updated or non-existent, Hard Drive Recovery Software can be used to recover lost data.

Consider a situation; you copy many files to root folder of the boot volume using NTFS file system. After this, when you start the system, it fails and gives the following error message:

“NTLDR is missing
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart.”

This error is specific to Windows XP (Home and Professional editions) and Windows 2000 (Advanced Server, Professional and Server editions). Apart from copying the files to the root folder, it can also occur if a program is continuously creating and removing temporary files in root folder. Trying to remove the files root folder doesn’t help as once allocated, MFT allocation index size can’t be reduced.

Cause

NTLDR (NT Loader) is the Windows boot loader for Windows. System reports it missing if it doesn’t find its correct allocation index. It occurs when MFT root folder is highly fragmented and contains many files. As a result, MFT gets severely fragmented and an added allocation index gets created. Due to this reason , in the allocation indexes, all files are mapped alphabetically, NTLDR is pushed to the second allocation index and system fails to find it.

Solution

To correct the issue, you need to carry out these steps:

Try using Bcupdate2.exe utility to update your hard drive boot code
If the same problem continues, reformat your hard drive and restore lost data from backup. If you find issues with backup like, backup is invalid, not up-to-date or totally absent, scan your hard drive using Hard Drive Recovery utilities. Such Hard Drive Recovery Software use advanced searching algorithms to locate and restore missing information on hard drive.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a complete and premier Hard Drive Recovery application. It supports Windows 7 (currently in RC1), Vista, XP, 2003, and 2000). The software provides advanced features including Drive Imaging, Disk Cloning, Drive Status, and others. This Hard Drive Recovery Software is compatible with FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS, and NTFS5 file systems.

By: mnkstllr

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Author has discussed causes and perspective solutions to over come from this file related problem by using hard drive recovery software and used best utility for hard drive recovery.