Boot failure Windows XP

[Guest]

Hello everyone,

I have Windows XP on my home desktop computer and it has been running fine
for last several months. All of a sudden it failed to reboot today. I used
a boot disk to get started. I then noticed that the system does not
recognize the drives C (where my Windows XP OS is installed) or D drive which
is a seperate physical drive for my data.

Any ideas on what I can do?

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[Rich Barry]

Try a Repair Install if you have a WinXP CD. Check here on how to do it.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

[G.R.]

Hello everyone,

I have Windows XP on my home desktop computer and it has been running fine
for last several months. All of a sudden it failed to reboot today. I
used
a boot disk to get started. I then noticed that the system does not
recognize the drives C (where my Windows XP OS is installed) or D drive
which
is a seperate physical drive for my data.

Any ideas on what I can do?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Do you see the drives listed during bootup? Did you do anything in BIOS
prior to the failure? If both physical drives are on the same IDE
controller as master and slave, try to see if the cable worked itself loose.

 

[Scott]

Do you see the drives listed during bootup? Did you do anything in BIOS
prior to the failure? If both physical drives are on the same IDE
controller as master and slave, try to see if the cable worked itself loose.

He stated that it is just a single drive - which would therefore be
the master or single. Unless the BIOS was cleared by a dead battery,
losing the drive information, and unless the drive connector has
loosened, it would appear that the hard drive has failed.

 

[Scott]

Hello everyone,

I have Windows XP on my home desktop computer and it has been running fine
for last several months. All of a sudden it failed to reboot today. I used
a boot disk to get started. I then noticed that the system does not
recognize the drives C (where my Windows XP OS is installed) or D drive which
is a seperate physical drive for my data.

Any ideas on what I can do?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Sorry. I must have had the wrong glasses on when I replied yesterday.
Now it reads "separate physical drive".

 

[Guest]

Scott, GR and Rich,

Let me try and respond to all of you.
The specific error message is:
Detecting IDE Primary Master
Detecting IDE .... None

Verifying DMI Pool Data
Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter.

I did not change anything in the BIOS. Not sure of battery condition for
CMOS. Is there any downside to remove it for testing? I checked the IDE
cable and seems ok.

In the meantime, after several attempts to reboot, I did get a clean reboot
ONCE but then later it ran into same errors as above.

I am hoping my C drive is ok. Any ideas?

Appreciate any help at all