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Boot Disk Failure

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by phinds

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After post, the computer displays a message that basically says, "Boot disk failure, insert system disk and press enter." The funny thing is it has a Harddrive being detected by bios that has a fresh installation of Win XP. To make matters more perplexing, if you insert a windows xp disk in the cd drive, and let it time out on the boot from cd, it will default to the harddrive and boot without a hitch. I have not found anything to fix this for XP. I have seen solutions for win98. It involves copying fresh versions of the system files for booting to the harddrive. Does anyone know how to this with the winXP recovery console? I have already tried reformatting, resetting and flashing bios, cpu, memory, and hd. It is a brand new mother board and CPU. This may have happened when someone shut power to the the computer without shutting windows down. Any help would be appreciated. (this is the second computer i've seen this happen on and another motherboard isn't a viable solution at the moment.) Thanks again in advance.

Pratt

14 replies

by deepsand

This is a tech. problem, in search of a solution.

It properly belongs in "Technical Q&A," not in "Discussions." Please re-post there.

Not only will you be more likely to attract the attention of those seeking to provide answers, but you will also make it easier for those seeking discussions to find such.

Thank you.

by why me worry?

Get yourself a copy of FDISK.EXE from DOS 6.22 or Windows 9x/ME and make a boot disk and copy the FDISK.EXE file onto it. Write protect the floppy to make sure it does not get infected if you do have a virus. After booting, run FDISK /MBR to kill the master boot record of your hard drive. Then, FDISK the hard drive again and kill any NTFS partition you may have on it. Reinstall Windows XP and see if all is better. If not, you may have zapped your motherboard or BIOS.

by garion11

Like the above poster said...a boot sector virus, a corrupt boot file, or the beginning of the end of the HD. If it helps I have seen this for XP but only on IBM computers...after you replace a HD. The se things were quirky so what we had to do in addition to replacing a HD is to flash the BIOS and that fixed the problem.

Another solution to this is to run Fixboot and FixMBR from the recovery console if you haven't already done that.

What I suggest you do is take the HD out and go to anther known good PC and see if the problem follows it. If it does you know where the issue is..if it doesn't then you know something is wrong with that PC (Cable, IDE controllor, etc). Keep me posted.

by phinds

Thank you for your replies, though a little late. I determined it was the HD going bad. It was running way too hot and would cause systems to hang while trying to detect it. I appologize for posting in the wrong area. I would like to get feedback from others on Western Digital's W2500. We RMA'd three of them in the same week. As a service and retail store, would any of you suggest changing to a different manufacturer? We primarily carry western digital, but if anyone knows that one is better than the rest. Let me know. (I run Maxtor HD's in my own system)

by geoff.mason

I am having this exact same issue on W2k. I have fixed the MBR with Ghost but not yet attempted reinstall. Drive was working on a different motherboard. Transferred it to this box but it does not see the drive unless there is a windows NT/2000/XP Disk in the CDROM, boots perfectly after that. Original MB was replaced due to power issue that SOYO refused to help diagnose. No reason to believe drive is bad. Bios does act weird, doesn't detect drives until booted twice after device or cable change. MB is a gigabyte 2004RZ. Tried to reinstall but won't even recognize the drive during the 1st boot after install. Ideas.

by twinklestar007

I faced with the same error msg
"Boot Disk Failure, insert...."
I inserted the Windows XP Pro CD.
is it right?
after i made this, i can only see the black screen and cursor is twinkling.
what should i do?

I don't have much knowledge about Hardware.

by johnlairson

Go into the BIOS and make sure that the HDD is the only device is the boot priority/sequence. Disable all the rest

by prasad.dange

Hi,
Its quite possible that Master Boot Record is currupted. I suggest you to Try this, boot with option 'Command Prompt using safe mode' (press F8 immediatly after boot using your winxp cd) then insert a floppy with win98 startup files or a dos bootable. go to the appropriate floppy drive. type 'fdisk/mbr', hit enter. This will flush the MBR and detect the primary partition and the problem should be resolve. Hope it works

thanks,
Prasad.

by fettka

I have tried 2 brand new hard drives, and am having the same problem, keep getting boot disk failure message. After a couple of tries, it will boot up, but will run very slow, and the only programs on the hard drive are Windows XP, MS Office 2003, and Norton Systemworks 2006. Have re-installed Windows 3 times on the new drives, to no avail. No peripherals are hooked up at the moment, but that doesn't seem to help.

by trov

hi to all !

i have too this problem : "disk boot failure please insert system disk and press enter"

my OS is Windows XP Vista edition. I can`t remove this problem. 2 times preinsalation, in BIOS - all is default , When i starting PS - black screen and this message "disk boot failure please insert system disk and press enter" . in CD-ROM - bootable Windows and then OS load normal - with bootscreen, welcomescreen and everining OK. But everytime in start is fail ! What can i do ? My HD is 80 GB and is new. RAM - 256 MB It is possible to be motherboarth - i dont know ?!?!

by lilachue

I got the same problem with my computer!!!
At some time I used GHOST to check whether *.gho was well, then I reboot my computer and it replied "NTLDR missing". Oh, my god!
I re-install but it replied "Disk boot failure ...". Ho~~, the funny is that I can boot with the help of my CD-ROM, by used a install DISK time-out and boot from the HardDisk.

by noni_boro

go to BIOS and check the boot preference. select HDD as 1st preference.and also open the tower and after doin a power drain and try reseatin the cables from the HDD to the MOBO, and just check for any loose connections.

by seastmead

If the standard remedies (Microsoft etc) do not correct the problem and you have more than one hard drive installed, then do a clean reinstall as below:
1) turn PC off and disconnect all hdd apart from your OS system drive.
2) reboot from the OS CD and select the Install option
3) When you get to the screen that lists advanced options, select it and then Reformat the selected OS hard disk drive. Reformat from here in preference to the CMD screen.
4) Continue the OS install.

It worked for me - I gather in multi-disk systems that some of the boot info can be split across the disks, and it is this that stops the microsoft procedures from working.

Steve

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