UKC

I have an old desktop which doesn’t get a lot of use but I do use it for Photoshop and a few other things and it has lots of stuff on it that I want to keep and have access to. 
At present it won’t start and comes up with NTLDR is missing. Press Ctrl Alt Del to restart, but this doesn’t do anything but return to NTLDR is missing.

Any advice?

Does it have anything plugged into it such as an external drive or usb stick ?

Remove these and try again.

https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager-software/windows-ntldr-is-missing-... -- it's  more likely something else plugged in (fix 1 on the link).  Also, try ejecting the CD rom if there's on in there.

On an older machine, your last ditch option is almost always successful, which is to remove the hard disk itself and read it on another computer.  (on a newer machine, it might have on-board encryption, e.g. with Windows Bitlocker which makes it a bit more intricate).

Assuming you have checked the items mentioned above ...

Is there more than one disk in the system? so check its trying to boot off the correct disk.  You need to do this in the BIOS.  Best to look how to do this on t'internet.  Essentially press the on button from a cold start and immediately press and keep pressing either the [Del] key or the [F9] key to eneter the BIOS.  Check the BOOT settings.  Press [F10] to save and reboot.

Do you still have the installation CD or the rescue disk you were supposed to make when installing windows?  The boot record maybe corrupt (happened to me a few times).  Put in the boot CD and choose the "repair" option.

If you don't have a boot CD there are repair disks available online, just download and burn to a CD or make a bootable USB.  Instructions usually on the site.  These will have a tool to fix your boot record, amongst many tools.

When doing the BIOS fix above it should list the drives in the machine.  If none are listed then the cable may have become loose.  Pop the side/top off the case and check the data cables to the drive at both ends.

Give it a bit more choke and spray some brake cleaner into the air filter. 

NTLDR is missing generally means that either the filesystem or the drive itself are screwed. My suggestion is to get the drive out and plug it into another machine.

Take it to CNL Computers, 28 Kirkland.

I was a little sceptical that it could be something so simple, but I removed a usb stick and an SD card and I'm now using it for this post. Thank you.

Thanks to all the others who have made suggestions.

It was “booting” to these removable devices first and not fining an operating system to load.

As others have said you can amend the boot order in the BIOS to stop this…or simply remember to unplug the devices on shutdown.

Take this as your opportunity to have a think about backups of those files you were worried you might not get access to again.

On a Windows machine, OneDrive is a pretty easy solution and you might already have some space there if you have a office 365 subscription.