Weird XP Prob

[Sacramento]

Seem to have a startup prob with XP Pro.
On Bios screen it says BOOT DISK FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISC

Resetting it does not make any difference.. but.....this is the strange bit, least I think so....If I leave my XP CD in the optical drive, either one, then it boots up to windows no problem.

It ain't booting from the CD as such 'cos that would lead me to the blue windows set up screen right?
There is not even a sign of disc activity in the optical drive........
suspected the HDD was maybe "sticking". but this happens even when it has been running for ages and I reset.........any ideas folks

PC is home assembled job
Epox 8K9A
Athlon XP 3000+
IGB DDR 400
Maxtor 160GB HDD
Radeon 9600
Creative Soundblaster Live!
Sony Rewriter
NEC DVD writer
Win XP Pro service pack 1


Thanks in advance folks

[Pegasus]

Change the boot sequence in your BIOS so that the primary HDD is the first in line.

[Chuffy]

try booting from xp cd to the recovery console, then try command: fixmbr

Parameter

device_name

The device (drive) on which you want to write a new master boot record. The name can be obtained from the output of the map command. An example of a device name is:

\Device\HardDisk0.

Example

The following example writes a new master boot record to the device specified:

fixmbr \Device\HardDisk0

[Sacramento]

Thanks for replies Pegasus and Chuffy
Tried what you both said but still the same, will not boot without the XP cd in?

[sniper]

can you change boot sequence in bios to cd first and try a xp repair , have you changed anything recent ? can you go back to a restore point ?

[Sacramento]

Yeah I tried to repair XP after booting from CD as recommended By Chuffy.... above.......still same mate...........thanks for reply anyhow
Nothing changed recently
Haven't tried SysRest I must admit............maybe a last resort?
Hoping one of the Win Gurus on here will flash me an answer first

[CaptainRizla]

Unfortunately, everytime I've seen this error at work it's a sign that the HDD is going faulty.
Only appears for me when the PC has been on for a few hours and then rebooted but eventually they die.
I would get a new one and install Windows, set the old as slave and salvage what you need.

[Sacramento]

Yeah I thought this too munchie....Thing is if I get a new one, would you recommend using Norton Ghost to image the old one (I have allsorts on there) or would this be just replicating any errors there may be ?
Please advise

[CaptainRizla]

Ghost will replicate the information stored on the old HDD so if there are any corrupt files then I guess that they will be copied as well. It sounds as if the boot sector has become faulty and I doubt that this will affect it as this is physical information rather than data (I believe). Unless you can get hold of a cheap copy then I would just suggest making the old HDD a slave. Since the PC will be booting off the (hopefully) perfect working HDD you should be able to copy files across. Unfortunately, you will need to re-install all of the programs onto the new one.

Ghost is handy if you are connected to a network with a PC that can store the ghost image but there is a lot of config involved to get access to the file.

Hope this helps.

[Chuffy]

Just to confirm Sacramento, when you've booted off the xp cd in the setup screen you have tried the option to repair the current installation (not in the recovery console).

I would usually agree with captainrizla that the hdd is knackered but I can't work out why it will boot if the cd's in. You could also try when in xp running chkdsk to see if it confirms a hardware fault.


:nowords: got a suspicion i'm missing something simple

[jncg]

Hi,

Dont know if this will help but i had a very similar problem about a year ago,After trying all the solutions mentioned and a few more i decided to check all the hardware,after changing various components with known good ones it turned out i had a faulty memory stick,once replaced all my problems went.
Might be worth a try.
John.

[Sacramento]

Not sure exactly what you mean chuffy , can you explain it to me please, abput repair and recovery console thing?

I find it strange thatif, well OK the HDD is dying, it still boots when the CD is in, but boots not to CD (i.e. windows setup/ repair etc.) but to my normal C:\ partition ?

Can anyone shed any light on this?

thanks folks for your replies,,,,,,, need to get t o the bottom of this one

[DoctorX]

change the bios to boot from the cd drive first.

Place the windows xp cd in the drive and when given the choice to press a button to boot from cd do so.

This will bring up options on installing xp. Select new install. It will ask you what partition you want to use and select the partition that has xp installed on it. It should then prompt you saying a previous install already exists would you like to repair the install. Say yes and do so.

Hopefully this will sort you out.

I had a similiar problem and it was that my ram had died. I was using PC800 RDRAM which needs to be run in pairs so when one stick went down the whole computer went down.

[Chuffy]

sorry didn't explain properly, cheers DoctorX !

[Sacramento]

Thanks doctor x and chuffy, I will try this tomorrow, need bed now.
Thing is though if RAM has died would it still boot when the CD is in, how can this be, how can it boot from CD when HDD or Ram is faulty, I'm confused folks.
thanks for your replies

[BertRoot]

If this lot hasn't worked have you thought about taking the optical drive out of the equation. Does it boot if you have it in either drive or just the or you originally installed off?

[b!lly]

had same prob about 1 week ago on a new build,have u tryed setting the bios to failsafe settings,once doing this check if rebbots if not gradually diosable some more of the advanced feautres,in my case disabling udma on all drives and disabling udma boot block .as i say this worked for me:thumbs