2 replies
by dmiles
See the following Knowledge Base article
This article was previously published under Q320397
SYMPTOMS
After you copy many files to the root folder of a boot volume that uses the NTFS file system, you may receive the following error message the next time that you restart the computer:
NTLDR is missing
Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart.
If you remove the files that you copied to the root folder, the master file table (MFT) allocation index does not reduce to its original size.
CAUSE
This problem may occur if the MFT root folder is severely fragmented. If the MFT root folder contains many files, the MFT may become so fragmented that an additional allocation index is created. Because files are mapped alphabetically in the allocation indexes, the NTLDR file may be pushed to the second allocation index. When this occurs, you receive the error message that is described in the "Symptoms" section of this article.
Typically, files are not written to the root folder. This condition may occur if a program regularly creates and removes temporary files in the root folder, or if many files are copied to the root folder by mistake.
RESOLUTION
To resolve this problem, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the Bcupdate2 utility. For more information about how to contact Microsoft Product Support Services, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=sz;en-us;top
WORKAROUND
To work around this problem, create a boot disk for starting your computer. For additional information about how to create a boot disk, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
119467 How to create a bootable disk for an NTFS or FAT partition
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