Disk Boot Failure message after any hardware change

[Alan Robinson]

Can anyone help as I'm mystified!!
I have 3 HD's in my Intel based XP system with the boot drive installed in a
caddy. (I have a spare caddy with another drive for a backup and I use Ghost
to copy the drive image to the spare drive when I backup)

I removed the graphics card (ATI Radeon9600) a few weeks ago to troubleshoot
my son's PC and when I replaced it my system failed to see the IDE 1 and 2
drives. Rebooted, drives appeared and then boot "Disk Boot Failure, insert
system disk and press enter".

I tried:
Updating the mother board BIOS
CHKDSK found errors on C: and D: drives
Eventually installed Windows XP SP2
Running CHKDSK found and fixed errors on C: and D: drives
Ran FIXBOOT and FIXMBR etc
Did an XP install/repair

Eventually did a fresh Windows installation on the spare drive and found it
still produced the same error message.

After a lot of messing around, I found that disconnecting the D: drive and
pressing enter when the "insert system disk" message appeared (with no CD in
the drive), everything booted up OK.
If I re-connect the drive, I can't boot.
The "Ultimate Boot disk" reckons the D: drive is fine and I can read the
data on it.

Sorry to be so long winded but has anyone any ideas??

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Can anyone help as I'm mystified!!
I have 3 HD's in my Intel based XP system with the boot drive installed in a
caddy. (I have a spare caddy with another drive for a backup and I use Ghost
to copy the drive image to the spare drive when I backup)

I removed the graphics card (ATI Radeon9600) a few weeks ago to troubleshoot
my son's PC and when I replaced it my system failed to see the IDE 1 and 2
drives. Rebooted, drives appeared and then boot "Disk Boot Failure, insert
system disk and press enter".

I tried:
Updating the mother board BIOS
CHKDSK found errors on C: and D: drives
Eventually installed Windows XP SP2
Running CHKDSK found and fixed errors on C: and D: drives
Ran FIXBOOT and FIXMBR etc
Did an XP install/repair

Eventually did a fresh Windows installation on the spare drive and found it
still produced the same error message.

After a lot of messing around, I found that disconnecting the D: drive and
pressing enter when the "insert system disk" message appeared (with no CD in
the drive), everything booted up OK.
If I re-connect the drive, I can't boot.
The "Ultimate Boot disk" reckons the D: drive is fine and I can read the
data on it.

Sorry to be so long winded but has anyone any ideas??

I stopped using caddies some time ago because of reliability
problems. Your problem may be caused by a time-out phenomenon:
the disk in the caddy responds more slowly than the disk that
hosts drive D:, causing the system to attempt to boot off drive D:.
When that disk is not present then the system will time out,
generate a prompt, recognise the caddy disk and boot normally.

You can confirm this theory by temporarily installing the boot disk
directly, without a caddy.

Why would you use a caddy for your boot disk?

 

[John7]

Hi Alan,

Does the video card have a separate 12V connector ?
If so, AND the hard driks are on the same power rail,
the card might draw so much current, it pulls down 12V
causing erroneous hard disk operation.

Modern power supplies have two separate 12V supplies.
Put the video card on the second 12V supply.rail.

HTH,
John7

 

[Anna]

I stopped using caddies some time ago because of reliability
problems. Your problem may be caused by a time-out phenomenon:
the disk in the caddy responds more slowly than the disk that
hosts drive D:, causing the system to attempt to boot off drive D:.
When that disk is not present then the system will time out,
generate a prompt, recognise the caddy disk and boot normally.

You can confirm this theory by temporarily installing the boot disk
directly, without a caddy.

Why would you use a caddy for your boot disk?

Alan:
Let me see if I understand the gist of your problem as it exists at this
moment:

You have two hard drives each in a mobile rack for removable HDDs. That's
what you mean when you refer to a "caddy", correct? And another HDD which I
assume is installed as an internal (non-removable) HDD, yes?

Notwithstanding the hardware changes you previously made, is the basic
problem such that neither one of your removable HDDs can boot with an
(apparently) viable XP OS installed on each? Is that the basic problem?

Assuming that's what you're dealing with here -- have you removed the drives
from their mobile racks and installed them as internal HDDs as Pegasus has
suggested? Same problem?

You're absolutely sure you've correctly connected/configured those drives?
Have you tested them with the diagnostic utility that can be obtained from
the manufacturer of the HDD?

You say you "removed the graphics card (ATI Radeon9600) a few weeks ago to
troubleshoot" the PC and then replaced it. Any chance something went amiss
there? The card is properly seated? No problems with it previously?

As far as Pegasus's negative comments as they relate to removable HDDs in
mobile racks...

I am a strong proponent of equipping one's desktop PC with removable HDDs -
preferably two. The flexibility and peace of mind one experiences with so
equipping one's desktop PC cannot be overestimated.

I have built/equipped or supervised the building/equipping of hundreds of
PCs over the years containing removable HDDs. In so doing we've worked with
scores of different model mobile racks and hundreds of different makes &
models of HDDs. By & large the mobile racks have performed admirably and
their rate of failure is no worse than any other PC component in my
experience. And based on our tests we've found virtually no degradation of
the HDD performance when it's encased in a mobile rack.
Anna

 

[Mark]

Alan

I have had any number of funny issues (caddies involved) and just recently I
found that even though I thought I had the drives all set OK as in Master
slave etc for some reason I had to swap drives and the CD rom around to get
it all to work.

Just a thought.