boot failure

[Damien]

my computer is failing to boot and I don't know why. I've
tried the emergency repair disk, I've tried fixboot in the
recovery console, I've tried fixmbr and I've tried
reinstalling windows. Nothing is working. And every time I
restart I have to boot from four floppy disks which is
time-consuming and annoying.

does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Bjorn Landemoo]

Damien

What do you see on the screen after POST? Any detail can be valuable in
figuring out what is - or isn't - happening.

Best regards

Bjorn

 

[Damien]

It searches for boot records on floppy, scsi, then cdrom.
If it doesn't find anything, it says boot failure, and I
need to boot from either a floppy disk or a cd.

I've just tried installing windows again, but in a new
directory so I don't write over my old files. I don't want
to try installing over windows unless I know I have to...
Windows installed fine, and all the files are there, I'm
still having the same problem with booting. Windows just
doesn't want to start.

The problem started (I don't know if this will help) when
I tried to switch my dvdrom to secondary master, and my
cdrom to secondary slave. I switched the jumpers and
cable... I also may have started the computer once without
either plugged in. This was just before windows began
refusing to boot.

 

[Bjorn Landemoo]

Damien

The "boot failure" message probably comes from your BIOS, that cannot find
the hard disk. This happens before Windows starts to load, so you should
search for hardware problems, not for Windows problems.

Try reversing the hardware changes you made before the problem appeared, it
might be a configuration problem. Also check your BIOS settings, you say
that floppy, scsi and CD are searched, but not IDE?

Why do you boot from floppies, and not from your Win2000 CD? Isn't it
bootable?

Best regards

Bjorn

 

[Damien]

I have reversed the hardware changes and am still having
the same problem. I was booting from floppies before I
reversed the changes because the cdrom drive wasn't
working. But the cd works now.

I can't check my BIOS. I have tried many times to enter
BIOS and it isn't working. My system starts rather
quickly, so I don't even see anything on screen before it
checks for boot records. But I hit Del as soon as I turn
the power on, and it continues as if I'd done nothing.

I will check again, but I'm sure that it didn't check IDE
for boot records.

 

[Bjorn Landemoo]

Damien

Try pressing F1, and then powering on your machine. Dell and IBM, for
instance, often has this option to access BIOS.

Best regards

Bjorn

 

[Damien]

Problem solved. Thanks for the help... It was a simple
Bios problem, and all of my documentation was wrong about
how to get into Bios.

Thanks!!