Disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter

[CarlosWA]

I am running Windows XP. My computer and hard drive are about 2.5
years old. Recently, I have not made any software or hardware changes.
Yesterday, after booting correctly and using it for a couple of hours,
my computer hung (this has not happened in months). Turning it off
from Start button was not possible. When I tried the manual reboot
button it gave the message
"Disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter"
I turned it off manually with the on/off switch and on again and it
was OK for a while before it hung again. After this happened for abut
five times, it worked well. I was able to reboot from the Star button
or by pushing the reboot button. I turned it off last night and on
this morning and it is fine.

I ran CHKDSK and it gave no errors.

Is this an indication that the hard drive should be replaced?

Txs, Carlos

 

[David Vair]

It could be an indication of pending failure, the best way to determine is to go to the Hard Drive
Manufacturer's website and look for some diagnostic tools in their support section. You can then
test the drive without harming any data on it I have Western Digital drives and their tool is
called WD Diagnostics, it checks the drive for errors and displays the result. Other manufacturers
have similar tools.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I am running Windows XP. My computer and hard drive are about 2.5
years old. Recently, I have not made any software or hardware changes.
Yesterday, after booting correctly and using it for a couple of hours,
my computer hung (this has not happened in months). Turning it off
from Start button was not possible. When I tried the manual reboot
button it gave the message
"Disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter"
I turned it off manually with the on/off switch and on again and it
was OK for a while before it hung again. After this happened for abut
five times, it worked well. I was able to reboot from the Star button
or by pushing the reboot button. I turned it off last night and on
this morning and it is fine.

I ran CHKDSK and it gave no errors.

Is this an indication that the hard drive should be replaced?

Txs, Carlos

It's certainly an indication that you should check your backups!

My personal view is that hard disks are currently cheap (I see 80 gig drives
for CDN$53) and easy to install, but data recovery efforts are harder and
more stressful for both the user and the system.

So, to my view, if you think there's the possiblility of disk failure,
replace the disk. Get your system working with a new drive - do a clean
install, clone the old drive, whatever - and *then* run diagnostics on the
old drive. If problems are revealed, you're covered and can just keep
working.

HTH
-pk

 

[Guest]

In addition to advice of David, check the event log
- are there recent disk or controller failures?

--PA

 

[Malke]

i have aproblem in my second computer on i trrend on it say system disk
failure enter system disk why ????? send me your anser on my e-mail
(e-mail address removed)

Sorry, no email support. Asked here, answered here.

Your post is very light on details, but I'd say your hard drive has died.

Malke