NTLDR missing - won't boot from recovery disk

acousticdj

Honorable
Apr 27, 2012
26
0
10,530
Attempting to fix friend's Dell inspiron 1720 notebook.

She's getting NTLDR missing error and "Press any key to restart".

Obtained a Dell Vista recovery disk for 1750 model.

Attempting to boot from disk from Bios, etc. Drive starts making healthy spinning noise. NTLDR error/press any key goes away. Cursor blinks like something is about to happen and after maybe 10 seconds the NTDLR error/press any key appears again.

Pressing any key just repeats the error.

Help? Thanks.