Re: ntloader missing....help!

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To rephrase and hopefully clarify what other have said:  win98 had to be on the first partition of the master hard drive on the first IDE controller, otherwise known as C:.  XP is a lot more flexible and can be on any partition on any internal hard drive.  But, a few files associated with XP must be on the first partition of the primary hard drive (i.e., on C:).  These are NTLDR, BOOT.INI, and NTDETECT.COM.  The XP installer will handle the details for you, as it obviousl did.  But, thereafter you can not arbitrarily remove and/or move hard drives.
 
The best way to get XP on the desired hard drive is to (1) format the new drive to get rid of any junk on it, (2) unplug the old hard drive, (2) plug the new hard drive into the master position on the IDE cable, (3) install XP.  If the PC can not boot from CD, which is stange for a PC new enough to run XP at all, then you have to options 1) use a DOS floppy with CD support to "see" the CD, then start the XP installer manually, (2) download the multiple-floppy et of setup disks from Microsoft and boot the PC on those, then install XP.  Option (2) is probably the better way to go.   See link below.
 
 
After XP is up and running, change the jumpers on the old disk to "slave", then connect it to the secondard position on the IDE cable, leaving the new disk (with XP) on the primary position.  One you are happy with XP, you can erase the win98 folder.
 
Note that doing these steps will make all programs, other than XP itself, stop working.  You will need to re-install everthing else.  For your PC's safety, be sure that a firewall (XP default or third party like Zone Alarm) and antivirus software are running before connecting to the internet.
 
Wait a while before activating XP.  You have 30 days.  Be sure that everthing is OK and that all near-term hardware modifications are done. 
Ok this is involved but I want to thank you in advance for reading this post and congratulations if you actually understand it.
 
My friend has this OLD computer that he wanted to put XP on.  He got some new memory and a new HDD.  IT has 98 on it right now but it has been getting very buggy to the point of changing settings every time he boots up hence the desire for XP
 
Anyway, we wanted to put XP on the newer, faster drive and then move over his important files to it then format and use the old one for extra storage.  I hope all this sounds reasonable so far.
 
We did just that.  We booted up to 98, stuck in the XP disk.  (before you ask his BIOS doesn't support booting to the XP disk)  The XP screen came up asking what we wanted to do, so we told it to format the new HDD to NTFS and then load XP on it, which it did.
 
After everything was over and it had us reboot and XP was up and running on the new drive, we switched the cable n the drive so the XP drive would be the master and the 98 drive would be the slave.
 
When we attempted to reboot, it almost immediately came up with a message that said NTLOADER missing then I think, Abort, Retry, Fail  on the next line below.  Sorry if these details are not right, I'm home now and can't see exactly what his computer said verbatim.
 
Oh, I just remembered...we had previously tried to load 98 on the new drive but had to abort when he realized he left his certificate at the ex-wife's house.  For some reason it wouldn't boot to the XP disk although it did for the 98 disk.
 
So when we switched the cables back, on bootup we got a screen asking which OS to boot to.  I'm assuming it was seeing the aborted 98 setup and the successful XP setup on the same disk, or either it could be seeing the 98 on the old disk and the XP on the new one....I dunno which it is.  We booted to XP and it was fine.
 
SO  my question is what do we need to do to get the new drive to boot up without giving this NTLOADER error?  I hope I've given enough info without being too long-winded.  TIA for anyone choosing to respond.
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