Weird Win-XP Boot-Up Problem

[dlc-NV]

This machine has worked perefctly for nearly 2 years, but now will not
boot-up into Windows (Media Edition) on HD. It goes through its boot
process, and checks the two prior boot options (floppy & CDROM) listed before
my HD; but upon finding "no CDs in both CDROMS, it appears to HANG - Will not
then boot from its HD.

(There have been absolutely no recent changes/additions of any type for
months; yet this just started a couple days ago. This machine has a current
AV and been checked with none detected. The HD involved is a SATA, as is the
second CDROM.)

By accident, I found that THIS O/S WILL BOOT from HD, if a bootable CD is in
either CDROM but ignored. I also found, by putting-in an OLD Nortion
(bootable NIS) CD, which brings-up the dual boot choices of booting from: (a)
HD or (b) CD, that this also works and gets to HD. HELP; what can possibly
be causing this???

I was going to try Recovery Console's FIXMBR, but got scared off, when it
said "non standard mbr and could cause serious problems". I did a CHKDSK and
it said "HD looks OK so it really didn't check HD". I did do a FIXBOOT,
which succeeded but didn't seem to correct anything. I looked at C:\boot.ini
and it has a "noexecute=optin after O/S" within it and that makes me wonder -
simply due to its phrasing, but I don't know!!

Can anyone help or make some solid suggestions??? Regards, dave

 

[Rich Barry]

Take a look at this Article. Do the ChkDsk.

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/articles/articleindex.php?action=printarticle&artid=67

 

[dlc-NV]

Thanks Rich:

I'm having trouble getting "notifications from here, when I got a reply", so
just NOW checked. I have looked/saved the article and will try ChkDsk; it
had not been my prior understanding that it would "work with the mbr, but
your article says it will (?)". I will try it.

I'm still bothered by comments in FixMBR, about "warning about NON-standard
MBR's, which I got the warning and backed-out". Was that because this HD was
a SATA, that was only thing non-standard about this HD? Regards, dave

 

[dlc-NV]

Rich:

Did a ChkDsk /r from CD and it did NOT work!!

Any other suggestions?? I think it may be the MBR, but am leery to try
FixMbr due to that warning and it being a SATA drive. Any more help??
Regards, dave

 

[Rich Barry]

Dave, go to the manufacturer of the Sata Drive's website and check
their knowledge base and you could probably download a drive diagnostic
tool.

 

[Anteaus]

It sounds like what's happening here is that the CD in question is one with a
multiboot option which times-out to the HD option. This is why it boots with
the CD in. This would suggest that your HD's boot sector is corrupt. Either
that or boot.ini (in c:\) contains incorrect settings.

You need to run the Recovery Console from a Windows CD, and do fixboot,
possibly also fixmbr.