Bare Metal Restore when NTDLR is Missing

SUMMARY

This article explains why a bare metal restore may fail with the error: NTDLR is missing

ISSUE

After the restore completes all you see when you boot the system up is “NTDLR is missing, Press any key to restart”. This is caused by a corrupted NTDLR file.

To resolve this issue, perform the following procedure:

1. Boot from Windows 2003 media
2. Enter recovery console
3. Fixboot
4. Fixmbr
5. Copy from CDdriveletter\i386\ntldr c:\
6. Copy from CDdriveletter\i386\ntdetect.com c:\
7. Ensure c:\boot.ini is pointing at proper location

Third-Party Sources

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=816793