Disk boot failure...

[Mike]

The HD on one of my computers recently crapped out & after replacing it,
reloaded XP Pro.
My boot sequence is set to C, CD-ROM, A, but unless I have the CD in the
machine, I get the message:
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
If I leave the CD in, it will give me the option to boot from the CD, even
though C is my first boot option.
Once it times out, it boots to windows.
Any ideas why?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

The HD on one of my computers recently crapped out & after replacing it,
reloaded XP Pro.
My boot sequence is set to C, CD-ROM, A, but unless I have the CD in the
machine, I get the message:
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
If I leave the CD in, it will give me the option to boot from the CD, even
though C is my first boot option.
Once it times out, it boots to windows.
Any ideas why?

The System partition on your new disk is probably not marked "active".

 

[Anna]

The System partition on your new disk is probably not marked "active".

Mike:
Assuming that's not the problem...

So what happened after you installed the XP OS onto that new HDD? After it
completed the setup (and there were no error messages along the way were
there?) did it boot then to a Desktop? Or did you get the "Disk boot
failure..." message even then?

And of course, you don't have a floppy disk inserted in your floppy drive,
do you?

Anyway, just as a test, try this...

Access your BIOS and change the boot priority order so that the CD-ROM is
first, the HDD second, and the floppy disk last. Ensure that you save the
changes when you exit the BIOS. Still the same problem when the bootable CD
is not present?

If there's still a problem tell us something about your HDD. Make & model?
PATA or SATA? Correctly jumpered (if jumpering necessary)? Properly
connected to the motherboard's correct IDE channel or SATA connector if it's
a SATA HDD?
Anna

 

[Andy]

The HD on one of my computers recently crapped out & after replacing it,
reloaded XP Pro.
My boot sequence is set to C, CD-ROM, A, but unless I have the CD in the
machine, I get the message:
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
If I leave the CD in, it will give me the option to boot from the CD, even
though C is my first boot option.
Once it times out, it boots to windows.
Any ideas why?

What motherboard do you have? Based on the C, CD-ROM, A nomenclature,
I would say it's a little old.

The way Windows setup is supposed to work is the BIOS tells Windows
setup which drive the BIOS is set to boot from. Windows setup then
uses the active primary partition on this drive as the Windows system
partition, viz., the one in which ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini
are stored, making the drive bootable. If the motherboard BIOS does
not provide the correct information to Windows setup, then the system
partition will be placed on the wrong disk drive.

Therefore, your C drive is not bootable, causing the BIOS to skip it
and boot from the XP CD. The startup code on the XP CD detects the
Windows system partition on the drive that the BIOS wrongly says is
the bootable drive, presenting you the option to boot from either the
XP CD or the hard drive.

To make the C drive bootable, use Disk Management to make the primary
partition active. Copy ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to the
partition.

 

[Mike]

Mark as active is grayed out, so I'm assuming it already is.

Mike:
Assuming that's not the problem...

So what happened after you installed the XP OS onto that new HDD? After it
completed the setup (and there were no error messages along the way were
there?) did it boot then to a Desktop? Or did you get the "Disk boot
failure..." message even then?

No error messages.

And of course, you don't have a floppy disk inserted in your floppy drive,
do you?
Nope


Anyway, just as a test, try this...

Access your BIOS and change the boot priority order so that the CD-ROM is
first, the HDD second, and the floppy disk last. Ensure that you save the
changes when you exit the BIOS. Still the same problem when the bootable
CD is not present?
Yep.


If there's still a problem tell us something about your HDD. Make & model?
PATA or SATA? Correctly jumpered (if jumpering necessary)? Properly
connected to the motherboard's correct IDE channel or SATA connector if
it's a SATA HDD?

WD 40G, PATA, set to Cable select.
Nothing changed since before old HD crapped out on me...

 

[Mike]

--
This post made under sniper fire.

What motherboard do you have? Based on the C, CD-ROM, A nomenclature,
I would say it's a little old.

Yes, an older Tyan, not sure of the model, but the CPU is a 600MHz Pentium
Yes, I know it's ancient, but it's always been ol' reliable for me!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Mark as active is grayed out, so I'm assuming it already is.

Boot the machine with a Win98 boot diskette from www.bootdisk.com,
then run fdisk.exe to force the system partition to an active
state. And no - it does not matter if this is a FAT32 or an
NTFS partition.

If this makes no difference then you can turn the Win98 boot
disk into a WinXP boot disk and use it to boot the machine.
Post again if you need further instructions.

 

[Anna]

"Mike" responds...
No error messages.

"Mike" responds...
Nope

"Mike" responds...
Yep.

"Mike" responds...
WD 40G, PATA, set to Cable select.
Nothing changed since before old HD crapped out on me.

Mike:
Set the WD HDD as Primary Master rather than Cable Select. CS should work
but every so often especially with an older motherboard (and I think you
said in another post that you were dealing with an older MB) CS runs into
problems. So try PM just to see what happens. I assume the drive is
connected on your Primary IDE channel. If there's no Slave on that same
channel ensure that the WD HDD is set as a Single (unjumpered). If still no
go, try connecting the HDD as Master on your Secondary IDE channel.

Also, just in case you might be dealing with a defective HDD (although it
doesn't sound like that's the problem since you apparently were able to
install the XP OS on that drive without a problem - that's right, isn't
it?), download the WD HDD diagnostic utility and check out the drive
assuming you haven't already done that.

And you never answered my question as to whether *immediately* after you
installed the OS onto that drive whether the system booted to a Desktop at
that point. Did it?

And I don't suppose you have another HDD handy as an alternate?
Anna

 

[Lil' Dave]

The HD on one of my computers recently crapped out & after replacing it,
reloaded XP Pro.
My boot sequence is set to C, CD-ROM, A, but unless I have the CD in the
machine, I get the message:
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
If I leave the CD in, it will give me the option to boot from the CD, even
though C is my first boot option.
Once it times out, it boots to windows.
Any ideas why?

Telltale hint is the CD boot timeout, followed by booting XP. You made no
mention of any problems after that happened.

Suggest you remove CD and A from the bootable order in the bios setup.
--
Dave

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