Can't boot without Vista DVD in drive - "a kernel file is missing..."

[Dizzledorf]

Hi,


I just received my Vista Business DVD (thanks, Power Together!) and
installed Vista on a freshly formatted NTFS partition on my 36GB WD
Raptor SATA drive.

The install has gone well. However, I cannot boot my computer without
the original (won't recognize a backup I made) DVD in the drive on
bootup.

Originally, I received a "DISK BOOT FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND
HIT ENTER" message on boot. i Googled a bit and found advice to set
the main C drive as "Active". I did that and restarted.

The message went away, but was simply replaced by another message: "a
kernel file is missing. (then more about insert system disk...)" and
the same symptoms -- won't boot unless the original DVD is inserted.

Mine is a fairly new Athlon 64 X2 3800+ w/2GB of RAM and the
aforementioned 10K RPM drive... everything else seems to be fine.

But my computer (technically) won't boot!

How can I resolve this? Most Googles on the kernel file error bring
up outdated articles...


Thanks,
DIZZLE

 

[Wegie]

How can I resolve this? Most Googles on the kernel file error bring
up outdated articles...

Get a Mac!

Why you put up with such primitive errors is BEYOND anyone using a Mac.

Apple has a FAR better machine, it's just the masses don't know it yet.
Macs have much better software selection as well, so there really isn't
ANY reason to run a PC in this day and age.

Wake up people!

http://www.apple.com/getamac/

 

[Richard Urban]

Do you have any other hard drives in your computer? What type are they?

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Ron Miller]

Get a Mac!

Why you put up with such primitive errors is BEYOND anyone using a Mac.

Apple has a FAR better machine, it's just the masses don't know it yet.
Macs have much better software selection as well, so there really isn't
ANY reason to run a PC in this day and age.

Wake up people!

http://www.apple.com/getamac/

Ok, Ok, you've made your point. Continuously posting this same stale
reply to everyone in this Usenet group who has a question is helping NO
one. I'm sure you don't intend to do so, but your hackneyed tangential
replies about the superiority of OSX, which don't even contain the
slightest reference to the OP's question, are labeling you as a
proselytizer. As such, you're ruining your credibility -- i.e., people
cannot take seriously a person who makes the same response regardless of
the question. Please give our bandwidth a break and go post your
advertising somewhere else. This group is about users helping users, a
concept which obviously escapes you.

BTW, I am probably going to buy a Mac as soon as the new revision of OSX
comes out in the spring, but I don't plan to make hundreds of posts
touting my decision. That would be disrespectful of the folks who come
here for answers. Also, there are many reasons for running a PC "in
this day and age." Stating the contrary, again, simply detracts from
your credibility.

 

[Kerry Brown]

It's very funny that the Mac is becoming popular now that it can run
Windows.

 

[Richard Urban]

<grin>

Apple may get more sales because Mac can run Windows that they are capable
of getting with a straight Mac product.

Boy, will that ever frost the as*es of the Mac enthusiasts! How can they
badmouth something that turns out to be good for Apple.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Spanky McFly]

What are the people who run Visual Studio going to do? I make my living
with PC's, thank you very much. So why are you trolling in a vista group if
you love MAC's so much?

 

[koze]

Did you install a driver during the setup from Vista for the SATA drive? Or
are you able to set the SATA to emulate PATA?

If the second is not possible you have to let Vista have a driver to have
access to the SATA drive.

Ko.

 

[Dizzledorf]

Hi Ko, Richard,

I have one other PATA 300GB IDE drive in my machine, as well as two
external USB hard drives.

I didn't install a special driver for Vista during setup as it seemed
to recognize the drive and started installing right away.

How can I have the SATA emulate PATA? Through BIOS?

My Raptor is currently seen by Vista as a "WDC WD360GD-00FLA2 ATA
Device" ... not "SATA", for what that's worth. I just tried to update
the driver in Device Manager (where no device lists a warning), and
Vista recommended keeping the current one.

Is there some secret SATA driver from MS Downloads I should try?


Thanks,
DIZZLE

p.s. Wegie, thanks for helping me update my killfilter! It was
getting a bit stale...

I actually have a Titanium Powerbook and all it's good for is casual
browsing & iTunes. For all serious work, it's back to the PC.

Funny how all the Mac fanboys forget the (even more) painful
transition to OS X. Oh, lots of programs will work... well, except
OFFICE and PHOTOSHOP and... LMAO

 

[Richard Urban]

Install Vista to your hard drive while all other drives are disconnected.

I know for a fact that if an IDE drive is left connected Vista will write
some of the boot code to that drive. After the install has been completed
you will find that Vista will NOT boot. It will give you the EXACT message
that you posted here.

Now, it may be that if you have USB drives connected - and active - when you
install Vista, the same thing happens.

It's worth a try, yes?

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Ron Miller]

Hi Ko, Richard,

I have one other PATA 300GB IDE drive in my machine, as well as two
external USB hard drives.

I didn't install a special driver for Vista during setup as it seemed
to recognize the drive and started installing right away.

How can I have the SATA emulate PATA? Through BIOS?

My Raptor is currently seen by Vista as a "WDC WD360GD-00FLA2 ATA
Device" ... not "SATA", for what that's worth. I just tried to update
the driver in Device Manager (where no device lists a warning), and
Vista recommended keeping the current one.

Is there some secret SATA driver from MS Downloads I should try?

You do NOT need a SATA driver. XP and Vista both have IDE drivers that
are perfectly capable of running SATA drives. You do NOT have to have
the SATA drive "emulate" a PATA drive. The solution to your problem
lies elsewhere.

Because of the errors about "no system disk," I'm wondering if your BCD
store was written incorrectly -- i.e., if your MBR is not pointing to
the information needed to boot Vista. You might want to install
VistaBoot Pro and/or EasyBCD and allow them to rewrite your BCD
information on your C: drive.

 

[John Barnes]

Richard is correct and you can reinstall as he suggested or if it would be
easier, you can copy the boot files from your pata drive to the system
drive. You said you made C active, if that is your first drive in boot
priority, then copy there. Also, you can make your pata drive as the first
drive in boot priority and that also should solve the problem.

 

[Wegie]

Apple may get more sales because Mac can run Windows that they are capable
of getting with a straight Mac product.

?? Not sure what you mean? 95% of the people that get Macs run OSX.
there is no reason in the world to have Windows anymore. Sure, you can
dual, or triple boot a Mac box now, so Windows users still stuck in the
pre-OSX world can now move up to Apple hardware without too much change,
too quickly for them, is that what you mean?

Boy, will that ever frost the as*es of the Mac enthusiasts! How can they
badmouth something that turns out to be good for Apple.

Windows is considered "legacy" code by all computer professionals,
nobody in their right mind uses Windows if they can help it. Generally,
it's just the poorly educated that use any Microsoft Products.

Get a Mac and you'll see why lots of people are switching over.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Windows is considered "legacy" code by all computer professionals,
nobody in their right mind uses Windows if they can help it. Generally,
it's just the poorly educated that use any Microsoft Products.

I actually laughed out loud when I read this.

First off there are far more computer professionals that use Windows than
use OS X. OS X is actually based on Unix which is older than Windows NT
which is the base for all current Windows versions. Unix even predates DOS
by about ten years. Given that time line please tell me which one is
"legacy". Secondly can you show me a study that proves people who use
Microsoft products are poorly educated? So far all you have proved is that
some poorly educated people use Apple products.

 

[Adam Albright]

I actually laughed out loud when I read this.

First off there are far more computer professionals that use Windows than
use OS X. OS X is actually based on Unix which is older than Windows NT
which is the base for all current Windows versions. Unix even predates DOS
by about ten years. Given that time line please tell me which one is
"legacy". Secondly can you show me a study that proves people who use
Microsoft products are poorly educated? So far all you have proved is that
some poorly educated people use Apple products.

Laugh at this: In a poll that came out shortly after the introduction
of Windows XP people said they bought a Windows upgrade for one main
reason... they already invested in a lot of Windows software. So it
isn't loyalty to Microsoft that people keep upgrading to the latest
version of Windows, it sure isn't for the "quality" it is more feeling
trapped and not wanting to throw out all the half-baked, poorly
written junk that passes for software written for the Windows platform
and starting over with something else.

We keep hoping that after 20 years of dicking around, Microsoft
finally comes out with a version of Windows that isn't infested with
bugs, addresses long standing unfixed blunders for several versions
earlier, finds beta testers with the smarts to pass on a version that
doesn't need endless updates, patches, fixes and service packs or
oh... a new version that isn't candy to hackers.

So just remember we upgrade not because Windows is so good, it simply
would be a bigger hassle to switch to another OS and also replace all
that software we bought over the years. Of course if Microsoft keeps
screwing up even people that have used Windows from the beginning will
sooner or later just throw their hands up in the air and say screw it.
I'm sure getting close to the constant torture.

 

[koze]

I leave it as it is right now, all has been said, nothing to add from my
side <G>
Ko.

 

[John Barnes]

If it wasn't a better product, why would they upgrade? They would just stay
with what they had.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Laugh at this: In a poll that came out shortly after the introduction
of Windows XP people said they bought a Windows upgrade for one main
reason... they already invested in a lot of Windows software. So it
isn't loyalty to Microsoft that people keep upgrading to the latest
version of Windows, it sure isn't for the "quality" it is more feeling
trapped and not wanting to throw out all the half-baked, poorly
written junk that passes for software written for the Windows platform
and starting over with something else.

We keep hoping that after 20 years of dicking around, Microsoft
finally comes out with a version of Windows that isn't infested with
bugs, addresses long standing unfixed blunders for several versions
earlier, finds beta testers with the smarts to pass on a version that
doesn't need endless updates, patches, fixes and service packs or
oh... a new version that isn't candy to hackers.

So just remember we upgrade not because Windows is so good, it simply
would be a bigger hassle to switch to another OS and also replace all
that software we bought over the years. Of course if Microsoft keeps
screwing up even people that have used Windows from the beginning will
sooner or later just throw their hands up in the air and say screw it.
I'm sure getting close to the constant torture.

I see you are still using Windows. You must be a masochist to like the
constant torture.

I am sure if you polled Mac users who recently upgraded the results would be
similar. Or maybe not since Apple completely abandoned users with existing
software when they released OS X. That must have been very liberating not to
be trapped into using their old software on the latest version of their OS.

Please tell me which current OS doesn't have endless updates, patches,
fixes, and service packs. It would be one I would avoid.

 

[Ron Miller]

?? Not sure what you mean? 95% of the people that get Macs run OSX.
there is no reason in the world to have Windows anymore. Sure, you can
dual, or triple boot a Mac box now, so Windows users still stuck in the
pre-OSX world can now move up to Apple hardware without too much change,
too quickly for them, is that what you mean?


Windows is considered "legacy" code by all computer professionals,
nobody in their right mind uses Windows if they can help it. Generally,
it's just the poorly educated that use any Microsoft Products.

Get a Mac and you'll see why lots of people are switching over.

You really are such an abject fool that these mindless posts are
starting to amaze me a little.
-- Many people make their living working in applications that don't
exist in Mac versions. My brother develops educational CDs in
Macromedia Authorware. He has no Mac option. There are many other
examples like this one.
-- Who uses Apple servers in mission-critical enterprise installations?
Many use Linux, many use Windows. No one uses Apple products
-- Many people feel that they can get a LOT more bang for their buck
buying hardware that comes with some version of Windows than they could
buying a Mac that costs much more than a PC for similar specs.
-- Many people resent the CLOSED architecture of Apple more than they
resent the monopolistic attitude of Microsoft.
I could go on and on.

Overall, when you continually make outlandish, totally unsubstantiated
claims, it simply makes people disregard ANYthing you say. You're the
proverbial "little boy who cried 'wolf'." Even if you ever spout
something that's not pure nonsense, no one will be listening. When are
you going to understand that what you're doing in this forum is the
opposite of what you're intending (unless you're a troll planted by MS
to make Apple lovers appear to be idiots)?

 

[Maverick]

I actually laughed out loud when I read this.

First off there are far more computer professionals that use Windows
than use OS X.

That is more dictated by point haired bosses than anything else.
The IT pros use OpenVMS, AIX, Solaris, MVS, etc. rather than use windows.

OS X is actually based on Unix which is older than
Windows NT which is the base for all current Windows versions. Unix even
predates DOS by about ten years. Given that time line please tell me
which one is "legacy". Secondly can you show me a study that proves
people who use Microsoft products are poorly educated? So far all you
have proved is that some poorly educated people use Apple products.

Guffaw!! Age means maturity... Vista is just a newborn babe that has to
go thru a teething stage and get all the bugs worked out.
But FYI, if you are upgrading an XP box, you better back up all of your
third party media codecs first. Vista will wipe them out.