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Boot Failure

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by wkleo

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Recently, when I startup my computer suddently my computer can not load into windows and just stop in Dos Screen showing message "Boot Failure, insert system disk, press enter" and also I try to detect my hard disk in Bios but cann't detect it and when sometimes I startup my computer, it is works well.Is the power cable attached to the hard disk problem or anything problem??I don't know!Is any person can help or explain to me what exactly happen to my PC as soon as possible?
Thank You!

11 replies

by isadmin

This could be caused by several things. It could be a virus on the boot sector for example. First, try booting from a bootable floppy disk. It is most likely caused by hardware. Disconnect everything from the motherboard one at a time. Start by disconnecting the graphics card and then do a boot, next try the floppy drive, then the cd drive and so on. Have you seen a message that says "write protect error on drive c" or anything similar? Do check the cables to the hard drive. Does the hard drive start spinning on during boot?
Try these things and then let us know the results and we can work on the next stage.

by dmiles

The problem may be a hardware problem,you should check the cable by replacing it and seeing if this solves kyour problem,the other kpart is to insert a System Startup disk in floppy drive and see if this boots at command prompt type FDISK,select option to review the drive information
Reboot at command prompt type Scandisk,to check the drive for errors,if this fails you may want to look at the hard drive manufacturers web site to check for drive diagnostic utility

by snis7

i just want to let you know incase you don't have have a boot disk, you can try to boot your pc with north anti virus. this should also test your pc descriptors. and also if you have a windows utility disk (win 9x) you can use that to diagnose your pc. i would try to diagnose your pc first before attempting to repair it at your own risk.

by gary

It could be a variety of reasons as someone said earlier in the answers, the hard drive might be developing a fault and not initialising properly at boot or the mother board is having a fault on the IDE channels and not seeing the HDD or it could just be either the power cable or the IDE cable not working properly.

Try a different cable and see if that helps or try another power lead, if that doesn't work try the HDD on hte secondary IDE channel and see if the BIOS detects it every time on that channel. I did have a similar problem with a system that would only see the HDD when first powered up but not after being reset and found after all the stuff I recommended checking that the motherbaord had a fault on the IDE channel.

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