Computer at boot up says "disk boot error, please insert system di

[Guest]

My screen shows the Blue HP screen and then Wham! the message about the
DISK BOOT ERROR< PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK. all I do at that point is hit the
ENTER button and all runs like normal.
Someone said it was a Hardware rpoblem, I do not agree. Once I hit enter
all is great and I have run Nortons, Windoctor, Disk Doctor, Ccleaner, etc. I
have run Spybot with all of the latest updates and everything is fine.
Now what I can tell you all is this. I went to the Microsoft Download site
and I downloaded and installed, the Media Player plus free version, and
installed it. I installed the Office 2003 sp1 patch. and that was it. Afetr
I installed and rebooted, I have had the problem.
Now what I have noticed. I can NOT use System Restore. I have tried
several restore points and they all fail. I have also noticed that my
Autoexec bat is NOW blank as well as config.sys. The only two files that have
anything in them and that is very little is System.ini and win.ini Both have
only about 10 lines in them and I do remember that the system.ini file had
boot and printer stufff etc, now it is basically empty and shows no reference
to any progrmas etc.
Is there a way to have Windows create NEW system.ini and Win.ini files or
do I have to reformat, AGAIN? There is no BAK files in the root directory of
C and I even made certain that ALL files were visible and NOT hidden.
Any suggestions of what to do? The very LAST thing I had done on the
computer prior to seeing a problem was running that 276k malisicous program
finder from the Microsoft website.
Thanks for the help, I really don't want to reformat, again and I have all
these Utilities programs, all of these Safe guards in place and it seems that
the most vulnerable files get changed and there is no fix. The old days every
time something was done to a file a bak file was created. What happened?
Could a Trojan have done some dirty deeds to my system.ini and win.ini etc
and I know there use to be FIVE files under sysedit and now there are only
four.
Thanks

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Craig.

Which drive is set as your first boot device in your computer's BIOS?

It sounds like the default is to boot from the floppy, but there's nothing
bootable in the floppy drive, so it waits for the Enter keypress, then goes
on to the second boot device choice, which is your hard drive. Or your
default boot device may be your CD-ROM or your OTHER HD or some other
device.

Maybe all you need do is remove the diskette before you reboot.

If that's the problem, I'm glad you didn't have to reformat, reinstall...,
etc. None of that would have helped, anyhow.

RC

 

[Guest]

Hi R.C.

Thanks for the prompt reply.
Yes! the floppy is the primary boot. I thought it was suppose to be, in
case of HD problems, you are able to boot from floppy. I can change it, what
would you suggest and would I still be able to boot from floppy?
What would have changed my bios settings? I haven't touched them but I did
view them when things started acting up and the floppy was the first boot
drive.
Thanks

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Craig.

HDs are MUCH more dependable than floppies! And, in a pinch, you can just
go into the BIOS and change your boot drive to the floppy if the HD fails.
There's nothing wrong with leaving the floppy first - if you don't mind the
delay and the extra keystroke - but it doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe nothing changed the BIOS settings. Maybe the floppy was always first,
but there never was diskette in the drive, so it just went on to the HD
without waiting.

I just reread your first post. You badly need to shake of the Win9x/ME
mindset! This is WinXP, for gosh sakes. Unless you are dual-booting,
forget stuff like Autoexec.bat, Config.sys, System.ini and all the rest!
You don't need them anymore! Trying to mix them in with WinXP is just going
to cause you confusion and headaches. And you probably don't need any
Norton programs anymore, except for maybe their Norton Internet Security
suite, with firewall, antivirus and antispam. Stuff like the WinDoctor
seemed to give me more grief than help once I retired Win98.

Welcome to the 21st Century! ;<)

RC

 

[Ken Blake]

In

HDs are MUCH more dependable than floppies! And, in a pinch,
you can
just go into the BIOS and change your boot drive to the floppy
if the
HD fails. There's nothing wrong with leaving the floppy first -
if
you don't mind the delay and the extra keystroke - but it
doesn't
make sense to me.

In my view, there *is* something wrong with leaving the floppy
first in the boot order. If you put a floppy with a boot sector
virus in the drive, you won't get infected by it. But if you
accidentally leave it in the drive, and you are set to boot from
the floppy first, when you next boot, you're infected.

For that reason I always recommend that the floppy never be the
first boot device.

If you ever need to boot from a floppy, that's the time to change
the boot order, but then change it back when you're done.

 

[Guest]

The problem just happened and I have learned from over 25 years playing
with these damn machines, that what JUST happens can usually be JUST
UNHAPPENED.
I started in 76 with TRS-DOS and then Ms-Dos 2.11.24 and and then 3.0
and then 3.2 adnd 4.0 and 5.0 and 6.0 and 6.2 and then Windows 3.0 and
Deskmate and Windows 3.1 and then 95 and then 98 SE and now XP. I know the
Autoexec and config is not used any longer, but there were entries in them
just a few weeks ago and my system.ini use to have at least 50 lines or more
in it and it now has less than 10. I gave this info to give clues to what my
problem is and not that Windows needed or not needed it. Something has
changed those files.
I did you suggestion and changed the boot drive to the hard drive and I
got the same results.
I have uninstalled my free microsoft media plus program and still the
same results.
I use to be pretty good with computers and now am just friggin confused.

 

[Guest]

Ken

I have never had a floppy in my floppy. I will change the bios to look at
the hd first, but I am still getting the error.

 

[Dwight Stewart]

My screen shows the Blue HP screen and
then Wham! the message about the DISK
BOOT ERROR< PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM
DISK. all I do at that point is hit the ENTER
button and all runs like normal. (snip)

I had this problem before and it was an "always boot from this device," or
something similar, setting in Windows somewhere, either in a control panel
or the properties for the drive. I don't remember where and I can't look for
it since I'm now using a laptop without a floppy drive. However, look around
for it. It's buried in there somewhere. In my case, I had selected it in
passing when fiddling around with the settings to get something else to
work. When I restarted and got the message, it took some time to find the
cause (even while simply backtracking over what I had just done a few
minutes before).

Stewart

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Craig.

I started in 76 with TRS-DOS and then Ms-Dos 2.11.24 and and then 3.0

I bought the first TRS-80 (before they called it Model I) in December 1977.
I still have the original, stapled "Preliminary User's Manual" with a small
card stapled to the front saying that "As soon as the final manual is
printed" Radio Shack would send it to me. ;^} I also have the "Proof Copy"
of the Level II BASIC Reference Manual and the Preliminary Instruction
Manual for "TRSDOS VERSION 2.0", dated July 7 1978. These should go to some
computer museum some day, but for now, I still have them. The Tandy 2000
was my first MS-DOS computer in 1985. My last branded computer was a KayPro
286. My local dealer assembled a 386/25 to my specs in 1989 and I've built
my own from mobos/CPUs/HDs, etc., since then, up to my current AMD Athlon 64
system. After taking a year to get Win2K running right, I retired my
dual-booted Win98 in 2001 and haven't looked at DOS-based Windows much since
then. I still dual boot, but now it's into various WinNT versions of
Windows. I've been running WinXP since RC1 in August 2001 and have the
preliminary version of Longhorn installed on my third HD, but haven't even
booted it in months.

Not trying to "one-up" anybody. Just trying in a roundabout way to say I
understand now where you're coming from. As you said:

I use to be pretty good with computers and now am just friggin
confused.

I know what you mean! My advantage here is that I first got WinNT4 in 1998
and have had nearly 6 years to "shake off the MS-DOS/Win9x mindset" while
learning WinNT/2K/XP. I guess what threw me was this line in your original
post:

Is there a way to have Windows create NEW system.ini and Win.ini files or
do I have to reformat, AGAIN?

That struck me as the kind of question a recent Win98 "graduate" would ask,
especially with the "reformat, AGAIN" question, and I probably didn't read
the rest of the post as carefully as I should have. Sysedit used to be one
of my favorite tools, but I haven't used it in so long that I didn't realize
it is still included in WinXP. When I ran it just now, it shows Config.sys,
Autoexec.bat, System.ini and Win.ini. Config and Autoexec are in C:\, but
they are zero-byte files; WinXP does not use these files at all and won't
miss them if they are deleted. The two .ini files are in
D:\Windows\system32; WinXP doesn't use them itself and retains them only so
that we can run older applications that expect to find them. If they are
deleted, WinXP won't notice, but we may get complaints when trying to run
those apps. Note that the first line in both .ini files is a Remark:
; for 16-bit app support

After 15 years or so of running MS-DOS and Windows versions based on it, the
MS-DOS mindset was so firmly embedded in my brain that it was hard to escape
it. And WinXP looks so much like Win98 on the surface that it's easy to
forget how much difference there is under the skin.

With Win98, the computer always booted into MS-DOS first, using Config and
Autoexec, and then loaded Win.com and turned over control to it. Running
good old Sys C: wrote the files io.sys and msdos.sys into C:\, along with
Command.com. It also wrote the boot sector into the first physical sector
of the Active partition. This DOS-style boot sector held instructions to
find, load and start io.sys, which used msdos.sys to locate WinDir,
WinBootDir, etc. Win98 was always running as an application under MS-DOS,
the operating system.

WinXP does not use MS-DOS at all. The WinNT-style boot sector does not look
for io.sys or msdos.sys (or Config.sys or Autoexec.bat). It looks for
NTLDR, which uses Boot.ini, to locate the Windows folder, and NTDETECT.COM
to load and start WinXP. Once WinXP is up and running, we can use Cmd.exe
to open a "DOS" window - which LOOKS LIKE MS-DOS, but is not; it is an
application that runs inside WinXP. So, while Win98 ran inside MS-DOS, the
"DOS" window runs inside WinXP. Formerly, MS-DOS was in control of Windows;
now WinXP is the boss of "DOS". A BIG difference! For those few old
programs that require them for compatibility, WinXP offers the files
config.nt and autoexec.nt; these are used, if called for, when the "DOS"
window is opened in WinXP, NOT at boot time.

WinXP does contain just enough of MS-DOS to let us create a boot floppy. To
do this, put a blank (or expendable) diskette into the drive, then
right-click on Drive A: in My Computer. Choose Format..., then Create an
MS-DOS startup disk. WinXP will format the floppy and add io.sys and
msdos.sys to it. The floppy can then be used to boot into MS-DOS, but you
won't be able to read or even SEE an NTFS-formatted volume without help from
a third-party utility.

If you want to create a floppy to boot into WinXP in case of failure of the
boot system on C:, then just delete io.sys and copy NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and
Boot.ini to the floppy. Make sure that that copy of boot.ini points to the
proper location (using the rdisk(#)partition(#)) of the \Windows folder on
your HD. There's no way to get enough of WinXP onto a floppy to let you
boot, even to a Command Prompt. Remember, in WinXP, we can't boot into DOS
first; we first have to fully boot into WinXP, then run the "DOS" emulator
from inside Windows.

Now, back to your original problem: I don't know why your computer tries to
boot first from the floppy. You haven't told us the make and model of your
hardware or your BIOS version (or I overlooked it in this long thread). We
don't know how many HDs you have; whether they are IDE, SCSI, SATA or
something else; how they are partitioned and formatted; where you have WinXP
installed; or if you are dual-booting more than one version of Windows. We
don't know whether any of that relates to your problem, but we can't be sure
that it doesn't. Each BIOS is different, so I can't guess how to change the
settings in yours. If you mention the make and model, someone here might
recognize it and know how you should set your BIOS.

Sorry for the long post. I always over-explain things. :>{

RC

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Floppy 'seek at boot up' may be enabled in BIOS.. that may cause it..

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/user

 

[Guest]

Hi R.C.

I didn't take your reply as a ONE UP, I actually really enjoyed it.
I sold one of the very FIRST Tandy Model One Level 1 computers, for
Tandy in 76.
It was cassette base or linear memory and be sure to use leaderless tape
and dump twice, in case of tape drop outs. smile.
It had 4K of ram and ran Basic Programs. the Basic Book had some
extremely simple programs in the back, I remember Fire Gridley and after
typing it in, I would spend hours on that ole Black and white large dot pitch
monochrome monitor., playing that silly dumbass game. smile
I sold the first one for $2495 and the guy bought it to play Cassette
base Chess. It had seperate power supplies for the monitor and the CPU and a
seperate large ascii QWERTY Keyboard.. weighed a ton. We soon went to 16k
Level one and then Level TWO.....wow!
The computer before the one piece White Model four was the Gray Model
Three. You could have 5" floppies, up to two. We also had a Model Two which
had 500 k 8 inch floppies.
In 1985 the Tandy 2000 was out and Comptons gave me a CD with their
Excylopidia on it. I thought that was like Edison and the light bulb. The
Coco was still running strong and Tandy had dropped Deskmate and gone to
Ms-Dos, the one piece 1000 EX was what used 2.11.24 but had Deskmate.
I remember when the shuttle crashed in 86 that nothing happened in
Computers until NASA was airborne again, do to the fact technology comes from
NASA and the Military. We did go to a 101 key keyboard and move from 8 mhz to
16 mhz and the floppies went from 720k to 1.44 mb the Hard drives were still
20 mb and 40 mb which were $499 and $699. When NASA was back the 286 went ou
the door, the 386 came in briefly and was replaced by the 486 and 486DX then
it was time for the Pent ONE. wow! and we hit one mb of ram. The Sensation
came out with a 105 mb hard drive and we all thought we were in Paradise with
the one speed CD-rom.
What folks don't know is TANDY was given the blueprints for the THOR CD
by RCA and that THOR CD was able to read write and erase 1000s of times, but
the writeable CD never took off until the Hard driveshad large drive
capacities than the CDs. Guess they didn't want to be put out of business.
I have been around for the Timex Sinclair and the ColorComputers and the
Osbornes and the Packard Bells and all of the rest of them.
I still do not have my problem solved and would just like to REPAIR
windowsXP and I have a OEM CD from HP that has XP and everything elese on it
and I have XP SP2 on a seperate CD. So that is part of my problem, I do not
have WIndows XP on a seperate CD by itself.
Great reply and thanks, I enjoyed it, few people have been around a s long
as we have and are as confused as I am or would have any idea why I stand in
corners and babble. I have learned basic, wrote batch files, down it the long
hard way, forgot the old way learned the NEW ways at least 10 times, Have
watched Windows get better and get worst. I loved File Manager in 3.1 and
relearned Windows Explorer in 95. I was not aware of system.ini and XP until
you told me, I was aware of Autoexec and config because 95 was first to start
taking over FAT files and dos, and then after there is no more DOS Directory.
I did a fdisk and high level format in December and I thought I wa sin the
Twilight Zone. Smile.
Thanks for you reply, I really really enjoyed it and did learn some
stuff and this Ole has0been is still pretty confused.
You may write me at (e-mail address removed) and I will give you my regular
email from there.
Thanks.

 

[Andrew Murray]

If there was a disk in A: that it was attempting to boot from and failed,
the message would be
"Non-System Disk Error:
Retry | Abort | Fail"

but not the message as described below.