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Repair Console in Windows XP Professional doesn't work.

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by abbyd9

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I built a new PC last fall on a SuperMicro server PDSLE motherboard and a Pentium D dual core CPU. This puts me in the catagory of being my own Tech Support and I've encountered a problem I can't figure out. When the PC was finished I installed a brand new copy of Windows XP Professional SP2 that I paid $290 for at Newegg. Now I need to run the Repair Console to fix a problem but the CD won't boot in the drive. I've changed the BIOS so only the CD-ROM will boot and I get return message "Can't find NTLR". (It's there) "No system disk in drive". The Windows XP CD will perform a install after the machine boots off the hard drive but that's not where the Repair Console is. Anyone have a clue?

6 replies

by 1bn0

Is the CDROM still on the same connection it wasoriginally?

If not refer to this: (from one of my other posts)
""Is the CDROM on the second IDE interface?
If so it is possible the BIOS won't boot from it. I have worked on motherboards before that would only boot from the CDROM drive if it was connected to the primary IDE connector. If so you will need to move the CDROM to the same cable as the HDD. Make sure you set the HDD to master and the CDROM to SLAVE."

If this is not relevant I would suggest you try another CDROM drive from another machine. Before you remove the drive try bootting from it with the XP cd you are using. That will verify both that the XP disk is still booting O.K. and that the CDROM drive works too.

by abbyd9

After reading your suggestion I went inside my PC to see what I had done that may have caused my problem. My two hard drives are both SATA II as well as my Plextor DVD Burner. They are connected directly to the Motherboard. My other two CD-ROM drives (EIDE) are connected to an ATA-133 control card. This may explain why they didn't recognize the boot portion of the system disk.

Everything is working fine now.

by ic-it

If it still won't boot from CD, you may install the Recovery Console as a boot option.
Start - Run - (CD drive letter) d:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmdcons

by 1bn0

I take it from your response that you were trying to boot from the cdrom drives attached to the add-in ATA133 ide controller, which of course are not listed in the BIOS as bootable devices.

(Just so its clear to anone else who may run in to the same issue)

by abbyd9

That is correct. I reused used the ATA-133 control card from my old PC only because I needed extra connections. I also used single plug round bundle harnesses instead of ribbon cable for streamlining and that eliminated the Master/Slave dual connectors. My first choice of a computer chassis (Cooler Master Pretorian 732) and Supermicro PDSLE mobo made for a very crowded compartment. The space was so tight I had to locate and buy two 4-inch long SATA II cables to eliminate the extra slack. The hard drives were literally 2-inches away from the SATA connectors on the motherboard.

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