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| Written by Jono Cono I had a server I worked on recently and it was brought in due to a NTLDR missing error on Boot. That issue on it’s on can be fixed easily enough and I quickly replaced the file. After trying to boot the system again I no longer received the NTLDR missing error but instead would just receive a blank screen with the blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner. I tried using the advanced boot menu for Windows and that would not come up either.
After trying to unsuccessfully Boot the machine a few times I was now getting coloured blocks and random characters on the screen. I thought it might be the video card so I swapped in a known good video card but had the same issue. The motherboard had 3 PCI-E slots so I tried all 3 slots and still the same issue. I tested all the system memory which all passed and ran diagnostics on the hard drive which also passed.
Trying a different tact I booted into PE and could access the hard drive and see the current Windows installation on it. I initiated and successfully ran a system restore from PE and still I had the same issue. I ran a chkdsk /r which completed fine and yet again I was stuck with the same issue. As a last resort I ran a repair installation of Windows and the first time it rebooted it just hung after POST with the coloured blocks and random characters.
At this point I was a little baffled but kept going with my troubleshooting and cloned the hard drive which was successful. I disconnected the original hard drive and worked off the clone. Doing this I was able to complete the repair install boot into Windows and replace a few drivers. In the end it was the original WD Raptor hard drive which was causing the no Boot issue but displayed very strange symptoms that don’t typically occur for hard drive failure. Once I cloned everything to a new Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive the system was up and running with no issues.
