NTLDR

This article is about the boot loader for Windows XP and prior versions. For later versions, see Windows Boot Manager.

NTLDR (abbreviation of NT loader) is the boot loader for all releases of Windows NT from 1993 with the release of Windows NT 3.1 up until Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. From Windows Vista onwards it is replaced by Windows Boot Manager (BOOTMGR).

NTLDR is typically run from the primary storage device, but it can also run from portable storage devices such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, or floppy disk. NTLDR can also load a non NT-based operating system given the appropriate boot sector in a file.

NTLDR requires, at a minimum, the following two files to be on the system volume:

  • ntldr, the main boot loader itself
  • NTDETECT.COM, required for booting an NT-based OS, detects basic hardware information needed for successful boot

An additional important file is boot.ini, which contains boot configuration (if missing, NTLDR will default to \Windows on the first partition of the first hard drive). On non-English versions of NTLDR, it may also load bootfont.bin; this is not the case for BOOTMGR.

NTLDR is launched by the volume boot record of system partition, which is typically written to the disk by the Windows FORMAT or SYS command.

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