Author Topic: disk boot failure...... (Read 441 times)

tapakeg · « **on:** December 26, 2006, 11:13:27 PM »

The error message reads
"Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter"

My wife's computer would get this error message randomly, then one day, it would go in a loop. It would get to the first windows screen and reboot. I also heard funny noises coming from the HD so I went to newegg and bought a new 200gig HD. It was time anyway.

I took out the old HD and installed the new HD, and put in the XP cd in to begin the install, i never got that far.
Now the error message is 100%
I have the XP cd in the drive ready to install and the bios set to read the cd first, but it won't get that far.

She does have 2 hard drives, I unplugged the other drive, set the new one as master and same thing.
I unplugged the floppy fearing it might be causing the problem, same thing.

I switched out the motherboard. Same error message.

I switched out CD drives. nothing

She has 3 ram chips, I tried each one solo, same message.

I took out video card and audio card and used mobo video-audio., same message.

I traded out power supplies. same message.

I did a search on this message board and Maverick had the same problem, but i didn't see it resolved. What I did see was to change the IDE ribbon cables from the older bulkier ones to the newer thinner ones. nada.

Thinking maybe something got messed up in bios, I tinkered around, nothing. I set everything to default, nothing, I then pulled the cmos chip to really set things to default, nothing.

The HD's are both IDE.

That is pretty much all I could think to do, I think I eliminated most of the hardware issues, what now?

Is it hardware? bios? demons?

time to buy a dell?
Holy Water?

Thanks in advance,

Tapakeg

Krusty · « **Reply #1 on:** December 26, 2006, 11:28:58 PM »

Dells are incompatible with holy water, they explode on contact

That is rather strange. Leave all the other stuff in there.

Do you get a successful POST screen before you get this error? It almost seems like you're not reading the CD-ROM, and only trying to read the HD (which isn't even formatted, so it would give an error).

I'd double check the boot priority. If you have the manual or if you already know, look to see if there's a key you can press right after the POST screen that will over-ride your boot preferences. My old motherboard had this. If I hit F8 too soon (before windows started loading) it would ask me what I wanted to boot from. If you have such a key option, press it and choose the CD-ROM option.

Some CD-ROMs say "press any key to boot from CD-ROM..." and if you don't they time out and go to the HD, which (again) would give you the error.

I'd say make sure you're getting to the CD-ROM in the first place.

Roscoroo · « **Reply #2 on:** December 26, 2006, 11:38:14 PM »

in the bios go to the 1st page were the hard drives /cdroms are listed toggle it to auto hit enter ,,,, your new hd should be reconized .... set it to boot cdrom befor the hd and you should be set .

tapakeg · « **Reply #3 on:** December 26, 2006, 11:48:57 PM »

I do have the CD rom as the first boot.
I did try switching out CD roms, so it is working.

It does not get that far.

It sees the HD perfectly in bios
It shows the ASUS splash screen, then the post screen

This is interesting,

Pri. Master: None
Pri Slave: None
Sec Master: CD-ROM, UDMA 2
Sec Slave: None
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

It sees the HD in bios, but not post.

Krusty · « **Reply #4 on:** December 26, 2006, 11:59:16 PM »

Plug your CD-ROM IDE cable into your PRI IDE, and your HD cable into the SEC IDE. I wonder if that would ensure the CD-ROM was the primary boot.

DISCLAIMER: I've got no clue. Use or discard this suggest as you see fit

Roscoroo · « **Reply #5 on:** December 27, 2006, 01:12:37 AM »

Pri. Master: None <-- this should be toggled to 'auto" then hit enter

also dbl check that the hard drive has its jumper on master or cableselect

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #6 on:** December 27, 2006, 04:10:46 AM »

Unplug the bootable USB memorystick and try again.

tapakeg · « **Reply #7 on:** December 27, 2006, 09:33:09 AM »

Plug your CD-ROM IDE cable into your PRI IDE, and your HD cable into the SEC IDE. I wonder if that would ensure the CD-ROM was the primary boot.

didn't work

Pri. Master: None <-- this should be toggled to 'auto" then hit enter

also dbl check that the hard drive has its jumper on master or cableselect

check, and check,

Unplug the bootable USB memorystick and try again.
Had a printer plugged in usb, I unplugged it, still nothing.

I have googled this error message, and I see many other people having the same problem, no clear fix in any of them. It's getting frustrating. Thanks a bunch for the suggestions though, keep em coming.

Tap

Roscoroo · « **Reply #8 on:** December 27, 2006, 06:41:51 PM »

ok the only other thing I can think of is either a bad ide cable or the wrong type of ide cable . AE 33/ 66 ,100,133 .

tapakeg · « **Reply #9 on:** December 27, 2006, 07:32:13 PM »

Yeah, I just switched those out as well.

I can't think of anything else to switch out at all.

I went to a computer store today, they have $39.99 diagnosis fee.

I am going to put in the original HD hoping they can save it and all the data on it, then try for the new HD.

Thanks for all the help.

Tap

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #10 on:** December 28, 2006, 03:07:19 AM »

If you can't get your mobo to bootup from CD the problem is probably not the harddrive itself. The system should bootup from CD even without a harddrive installed.

tapakeg · « **Reply #11 on:** December 28, 2006, 08:13:17 AM »

I can understand if my old HD went kaput, but to buy a brand new one and have it not work also?

Vipermann · « **Reply #12 on:** December 28, 2006, 11:00:39 AM »

When using the Windows XP boot CD you need to press a key during startup to tell it to boot to the CD.

At some point as it reads the CD you will see a message saying "Press any key to boot from CD" or something similar, you must press a key during that message or it will not use the CD.

You probably are already doing that but I didn't see it anywhere so I thought I'd throw it out there.

tapakeg · « **Reply #13 on:** December 28, 2006, 07:30:51 PM »

Thanks for the tip, but it never gets that far in the boot up process.

Tap

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #14 on:** December 28, 2006, 09:10:31 PM »

It could be that your motherboards I/O controller broke, corrupted your data on the HD and now doesn't let you boot from CD.

Luckily harddrives are cheap and never get wasted so you can just buy an el-cheapo HD and test it out.l