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Disc Boot Failure

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9 replies

by wynneclan

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I've read through this forum and haven't seen this yet. I have XP, and my computer first showed me "Primary Master Drive Fails", then "Disk boot failure insert system disc and press enter. I did not make any changes to cause this. I tries changing the BIOS, re-seating and then changing the cables, even put in a new hard drive. This showed just the "Disk boot failure" message. When it boots, it shows all drives as "None" except CD-ROM. I downloaded the 6 floppy XP boot, which did not help. I don't have an XP CD-ROM, as it was factory loaded. I only have system restore discs, which isn't as good as it sounds. I cannot seem to use the CD-ROM. Any thoughts?

Thanks!

9 replies

by ozi eagle

Hi

You may have a hard disk that died, henc ethe "Primary Master Fails" message. The "Disk Boot Failure" message means that the PC couldn't find any boot info- obviously if the HDD failed.

The BIOS message NONE against any drive means that BIOS won't recognize any disk. You need to set BIOS from NONE to (simplest) AUTO. It will then detect any disks.
Before you swapout any HDDs try resetting the BIOS first.

Herb

by oh smeg

Is because the smart is enabled and the computer was attempting to tell you that the HDD was failing the SMART test and needed replacing. You didn't take any notice of the error message and eventually when the HDD failed totally it stopped working all together.

When you fitted a new HDD you get a message telling you that you have no Boot Disc Available which is exactly what should happen when you fit a unformatted/empty HDD to a computer.

What you need to do is install the OS again but you will need to first to go into BIOS and alter the Boot Sequence to Floppy/Optical Drive and finally HDD. Then you will be able to load the existing OS again. Though unless you have a solid backup you have lost all your data.

Col

by nicholas.ruiz

I am encountering a similar problem when attempting to replace the hard drive on a friend's computer. BIOS recognizes that I have both a hard drive and DVD burner attached via IDE cables; however, I cannot seem to run the winxp recovery cd, though I have Floppy set to boot 1st (although there's no floppy drive), CD 2nd, and HD 3rd. Any idea why I can't seem to run my winxp cd?

by nicholas.ruiz

As an update, I attempted installing the old hard drive and booting up, which led to the same result. My HD and DVD drive are both set to Cable Select. I additionally attempted swapping out the power supply, but I still get the dreaded boot disk failure problem. I also tried removing the CMOS battery and placing it back in to reset BIOS, but I still have no luck. Does anyone have any ideas? Thank you very much for your time.

by oh smeg

And then enter BIOS again and look at what it sees.

After that you should be able to boot from the Recovery Disc and do a clean install of XP.

Col

by nicholas.ruiz

I still get the same problem with the HDD as Master and the DVD drive to slave. BIOS detects both the hard drive and the DVD drive (HDD using 1st cable, in position 0, DVD using 2nd cable, in position 1). Any other ideas?

by nicholas.ruiz

I figured out the problem. I had downloaded the winxp iso from Microsoft's website to a computer at work. Since the comp at work didn't have burner software that took an ISO, I attempted to use Daemon Tools to mimic a DVD drive and attempted to copy all of the ISO files to another CD. Of course, there were missing hidden files, namely the hidden files required to boot the CD. I ended up re-downloading winxp on my home computer and burned the ISO itself. That worked like a charm. Thanks for your help!

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