Yet another Disk Boot Failure debacle

[dbubd]

Hello all,

I just bought a new system including a Maxtor SATA HD and ASUS A8N SLI
Deluxe MB. It's all put together, WinXP installed on the SATA HD. When
I start it up... Disk Boot Failure (DBF)... Of course it starts up fine
with the WinXP CD in the drive. That is until I moved some hardware
around. Now it does the DBF sans CD and attempts to install a fresh XP
with the CD in rather than booting to Windows. To get around this I put
an old IDE HD in and installed XP on that. Boots up fine AND the SATA
HD shows up and SEEMS to run perfectly. My system just won't boot from
it.

In reading other posts about DBFs, I concluded that somehow the drive
must be bad. At lease in the boot sector. I tried all of the various
FIXMBR, FIXBOOT, etc. from the Windows XP recovery tools (pressing 'R'
at setup). Now, after all that failed to fix the drive, I'm getting set
to send it back to Maxtor. To obtain a RMA from Maxtor you must run
their PowerMax utility and get an error code from it when it reports
that the drive is bad! Well, I ran every utility on that disk with the
exception of Format and they all reported the drive to be in perfect
operating condition.

So now I've got a HD that won't boot and no proof that it won't.

Any suggestions to getting the HD to respond or how to deal with the
Maxtor catch 22?

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[Odie Ferrous]

Hello all,

I just bought a new system including a Maxtor SATA HD and ASUS A8N SLI
Deluxe MB. It's all put together, WinXP installed on the SATA HD. When
I start it up... Disk Boot Failure (DBF)... Of course it starts up fine
with the WinXP CD in the drive. That is until I moved some hardware
around. Now it does the DBF sans CD and attempts to install a fresh XP
with the CD in rather than booting to Windows. To get around this I put
an old IDE HD in and installed XP on that. Boots up fine AND the SATA
HD shows up and SEEMS to run perfectly. My system just won't boot from
it.

In reading other posts about DBFs, I concluded that somehow the drive
must be bad. At lease in the boot sector. I tried all of the various
FIXMBR, FIXBOOT, etc. from the Windows XP recovery tools (pressing 'R'
at setup). Now, after all that failed to fix the drive, I'm getting set
to send it back to Maxtor. To obtain a RMA from Maxtor you must run
their PowerMax utility and get an error code from it when it reports
that the drive is bad! Well, I ran every utility on that disk with the
exception of Format and they all reported the drive to be in perfect
operating condition.

So now I've got a HD that won't boot and no proof that it won't.

Any suggestions to getting the HD to respond or how to deal with the
Maxtor catch 22?

I'd be inclined to get rid of the Maxtor drive and replace it with a
Seagate, Samsung or new (high capacity) Hitachi. I can only assume the
XP was installed with SP2, otherwise it may have had problems
recognising the SATA drive. Have you checked the BIOS settings? It
might also just be that the company you purchased the system from simply
has a standard hardware drive cloner that puts an image on a drive,
which they then stick in a machine and assume it will work.

I'd also *immediately* replace the chipset fan on the motherboard with a
decent third-party fan. The original Asus chipset fan is notorious for
failing. A decent replacement (in the UK) costs under £5. Otherwise,
the best of the ASUS SLI boards.


Odie

 

[Andy]

Hello all,

I just bought a new system including a Maxtor SATA HD and ASUS A8N SLI
Deluxe MB. It's all put together, WinXP installed on the SATA HD. When
I start it up... Disk Boot Failure (DBF)... Of course it starts up fine
with the WinXP CD in the drive.

.... when you see the "hit a key" prompt and don't hit a key? This
means that the hard disk is bootable.

That is until I moved some hardware
around. Now it does the DBF sans CD and attempts to install a fresh XP
with the CD in rather than booting to Windows.

If you don't see the prompt "hit a key to boot from the CD," it means
the startup software on the CD does not detect an active primary
partition on the hard disk that the BIOS is set to boot from. This
means that the hard disk cannot be booted, and, therefore, there is no
need to show the prompt, and the CD will just continue booting to
Windows setup.

If you have more than one hard disk connected, you have to make sure
that the BIOS is set up to boot from the correct one. For the ASUS
BIOS, the setting of interest is Hard Disk Drives.

 

[Fabien LE LEZ]

When
I start it up... Disk Boot Failure (DBF)...

It might be a software problem (Windows improperly installed), or a
motherboard problem.

Sometimes, when I move hard disks around (keeping my "main" disk as
master on IDE1 of course), the BIOS won't find the right boot sector,
and Windows 2000 won't start.
Fortunately, on my motherboard (like on most recent motherboards), I
can press "Escape" to have a "boot menu" (i.e. I can choose which
drive to boot on). Then it works fine.

Usually, after a while, the problem disappears. I'm not sure why.


On other PCs, I've seen the boot sector damaged, but apparently due to
software reasons, since reinstalling Windows did the trick.

 

[dbubd]

So what you're saying, Odie, is that I'll continue to have a Disk Boot
Failure until I upgrade the XP installation on the SATA frive to SP2.
My XP installation disk is SP1, I've been updating it once intalled.
I'm not positive whether I've gone as far as updating the OS to SP2 on
the SATA since it has the DBF on reboot.

This is my first SATA drive so I'm not sure of all of the intricities
involved in installing them and getting them to work properly. Is it
okay to have a SATA drive as your boot disk or should I stick with an
EIDE drive as my main drive and use SATA disks as additional storage?

I've been through all of the BIOS settings that I understand enough to
change (boot order, hard disk order, etc.) and they all appear to be in
line.

It might be that the whole disk needs to be wiped clean and start again
from scratch.

Finally, is there a chipset fan that you would recommend? I'm not sure
what to look for as far as fan diameter, power, RPMs, etc...

Thanks for your input.
matthew

 

[Odie Ferrous]

So what you're saying, Odie, is that I'll continue to have a Disk Boot
Failure until I upgrade the XP installation on the SATA frive to SP2.
My XP installation disk is SP1, I've been updating it once intalled.
I'm not positive whether I've gone as far as updating the OS to SP2 on
the SATA since it has the DBF on reboot.

This is my first SATA drive so I'm not sure of all of the intricities
involved in installing them and getting them to work properly. Is it
okay to have a SATA drive as your boot disk or should I stick with an
EIDE drive as my main drive and use SATA disks as additional storage?

All my recovery machines boot from IDE drives; if I set Windows to boot
from an SATA drive and add an IDE drive for recovery, the BIOS defaults
(on all machines) to boot from the IDE drive, which is a pain. I keep
the SATA drives purely for additional storage and for the RAID
controllers.

I've been through all of the BIOS settings that I understand enough to
change (boot order, hard disk order, etc.) and they all appear to be in
line.

It might be that the whole disk needs to be wiped clean and start again
from scratch.

It does sound awkward - but I'm fairly certain if you installed Windows
and pressed the F6 button to add the motherboard's SATA drivers, you'd
be ok - regardless of whether you had SP1 or SP2 slipstreamed onto the
Windows install CD.

Finally, is there a chipset fan that you would recommend? I'm not sure
what to look for as far as fan diameter, power, RPMs, etc...

There are plenty on the market - Akasa, Evercool, etc. Just measure the
size of the existing fan, which you may have to remove by unscrewing the
top plate of the heatsink. Then you can simply slot the replacement fan
in, and bend some of the aluminium tines over the fan to secure it. Bit
of a bodge, but it won't come off. If you have a heatsink with the fan
on top, a replacement fan should screw into the heatsink the same way.
Additionally, some fans come with plastic spikes that plug into the
motherboard at opposite corners of the chipset but this normally means
removing the motherboard to take the old fan out. Avoid chipset coolers
that "glue" onto the chipset - the glue tends to work loose in a matter
of days.



Odie

 

[dbubd]

So here's what I'm understanding:

As a general rule:
· If possible (which it is) use only IDE drives to boot from on the
primary IDE channel.
· Use SATA drives as storage / RAID drives.

Correct?

....and that by loading my motherboard's SATA drivers while setting up
Windows (by pressing F6) should make it possible to boot from a SATA
drive?

I've never attempted the F6 maneuver. Is it fairly straightforward
procedure to load the drivers from my motherboard? Will it ask for a
driver disk? Do the drivers load off of the BIOS? How does this work?

Thanks for all of the super advice, Odie.

matthew

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

It might be a software problem (Windows improperly installed), or a
motherboard problem.

It can be anything imaginable *or* it can be just *that* what
issues *the error message*, wouldn't you agree, babblebot-2 ?

Sometimes, when I move hard disks around (keeping my "main" disk as master on IDE1

of course),

Of course, speaks for itself, right. So why?

the BIOS won't find the right boot sector, and Windows 2000 won't start.

That can happen when your bios boot sequence has not been set to boot the
intended bootdisk first. This can happen when your other harddrives have
different partition configurations, e.g. one with only extented partitions
and one with a primary partition. Put them in the wrong order (before
your bootdrive) and your BIOS stops skipping them (when it reaches the
one with the primary partition) before it reaches the actual bootdrive.
Put the one with primary behind the bootdrive and all is OK again.

Fortunately, on my motherboard (like on most recent motherboards),
I can press "Escape" to have a "boot menu" (i.e. I can choose which
drive to boot on). Then it works fine.

So set your preferred bootsequence to that drive first.

Usually, after a while, the problem disappears. I'm not sure why.

On other PCs, I've seen the boot sector damaged, but apparently due to
software reasons,

It's always software reasons, simply because a physically damaged boot
sector just doesn't read at all.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

So here's what I'm understanding:

As a general rule:
· If possible (which it is) use only IDE drives to boot from on the
primary IDE channel.
· Use SATA drives as storage / RAID drives.

Correct?

...and that by loading my motherboard's SATA drivers while setting up
Windows (by pressing F6) should make it possible to boot from a SATA
drive?

I've never attempted the F6 maneuver. Is it fairly straightforward
procedure to load the drivers from my motherboard? Will it ask for a
driver disk? Do the drivers load off of the BIOS? How does this work?

Thanks for all of the super advice, Odie.

Yeah, thanks Odie, great job.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

I'd also *immediately* replace the chipset fan on the motherboard
with a decent third-party fan. The original Asus chipset fan is
notorious for failing. A decent replacement (in the UK) costs under
£5. Otherwise, the best of the ASUS SLI boards.

I have an A8N-SLI Premium and it has a fanless chipset heatsink. The OP has
the Deluxe though, so I don't know what's on it.

 

[dbubd]

Well...

I have tried everyone's advice (twice) and have come to the conclusion
that I need to go out and buy an IDE HD to use as my main boot drive.
When installing XP SP1 onto a SATA HD, you HAVE to have a floppy drive
installed (I haven't used floppies since Win98) so that you can load
the SATA drivers upon installation. XP won't let you specify where to
look for the driver. So if you haven't got an A drive, you're S.O.L.
I'm a bit pissed at TigerDirect (grrr) for letting this configuration
go out the door without some warning about SATA drives and Windows XP
pre-SP2 installs. It came with the ASUS MB, CPU, a stick of RAM and
this SATA HD, which I thought was great because I was previously using
a noisy 20Gb as my boot disk. If they were smart the should have
chucked in a floppy drive into the bundle. What do those cost these
days, $4.00? I suppose if I really wanted to I could go and get one
myself, but that's not the point. Or is it?

Here's some details of my experience if you're interested.

The Disk Boot Failures didn't start until AFTER I did my first batch of
Windows Updates (working my way up to the point that WU will actually
*let* you install SP2). I have no clue what the implications of this
are.

At some point (I'm not exactly sure what triggers it) the 'having the
windows CD in the CD drive when you boot" trick to avoid disk Boot
Failure messages stops working and goes straight to setting up a new XP
installation. It's like it forgot that it was running perfectly 20
seconds ago.

This whole thing has got me stumped. Luckily I've got what I believe is
a solution (new IDE hard drive). I would investigate it more, but
frankly, I've had enough of this and have a lot of work to catch up on.

Thank you immensly to everyone who helped out.

Matthew

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Well...

I have tried everyone's advice (twice) and have come to the conclusion
that I need to go out and buy an IDE HD to use as my main boot drive.
Nonsense.

When installing XP SP1 onto a SATA HD, you HAVE to have a floppy drive
installed (I haven't used floppies since Win98) so that you can load
the SATA drivers upon installation.

Which also applies if you have any other HD on a controller of which
drivers are not included with the OS.

XP won't let you specify where to look for the driver.

Too bad with all the MB that come with drivers on the CD.
They must be doing something wrong.

So if you haven't got an A drive, you're S.O.L. I'm a bit pissed at Tiger
Direct (grrr) for letting this configuration go out the door without some
warning about SATA drives and Windows XP pre-SP2 installs.

Has nothing to do with SATA drives.

It came with the ASUS MB, CPU, a stick of RAM and
this SATA HD, which I thought was great because I was previously using
a noisy 20Gb as my boot disk. If they were smart the should have
chucked in a floppy drive into the bundle. What do those cost these
days, $4.00? I suppose if I really wanted to I could go and get one
myself, but that's not the point. Or is it?

Exactly, nothing to bitch about, right?

 

[dbubd]

XP won't let you specify where to look for the driver.

Too bad with all the MB that come with drivers on the CD.

There is a utility on the drivers CD that allows you to make a floppy
driver disk with the SATA drivers on it. But it's no use if you don't
have a floppy drive available.

And no, XP will not let you specify where to look for the driver. A
major flaw if you ask me. I suppose that it's a blessing that we can
even install XP from a CD without a floppy, unlike Win98 and W2K with
it's big stack of boot floppies. Possible they'll fix this for Vista.
Small steps.

The funny thing is, naturally when XP saw the SATA drive, it prompted
me that it couldn't find any acceptable drives in which to install XP
on. After the 'put the driver disk in the A drive' bit, I told XP to
continue anyway. It then loaded what looked like a bunch of SCSI and
RAID drivers and then installed XP. If XP didn't have the SATA driver,
how did it manage to install onto it. And then why did it boot several
times and then all of the sudden decided it didn't know how to deal
with the SATA drive.

Curious.

Thanks for bearing with me. I'm learning from this.

matthew

 

[chrisv]

I suppose that it's a blessing that we can
even install XP from a CD without a floppy, unlike Win98 and W2K with
it's big stack of boot floppies. Possible they'll fix this for Vista.
Small steps.

Eh? Neither Win2k nor Win98 require boot floppies, if your machine
can boot from CDROM.

 

[Rod Speed]

There is a utility on the drivers CD that allows you to
make a floppy driver disk with the SATA drivers on it.
But it's no use if you don't have a floppy drive available.

Even you should be able to work out how to get one.

And no, XP will not let you specify where to
look for the driver. A major flaw if you ask me.

No one did.

I suppose that it's a blessing that we can even install
XP from a CD without a floppy, unlike Win98 and
W2K with it's big stack of boot floppies.

Mindlessly silly, you dont need any floppys at
all with either of those. Boot floppys in spades.

Possible they'll fix this for Vista.

Its already been fixed in XP SP2.

Small steps.

Mindless pig ignorant silly stuff.

The funny thing is, naturally when XP saw the SATA drive, it prompted
me that it couldn't find any acceptable drives in which to install XP on.

Because you ****ed up.

After the 'put the driver disk in the A drive' bit, I told XP to
continue anyway. It then loaded what looked like a bunch
of SCSI and RAID drivers and then installed XP. If XP didn't
have the SATA driver, how did it manage to install onto it.

The install aint the same thing as what its installing.

And then why did it boot several times and then all of the
sudden decided it didn't know how to deal with the SATA drive.

Because you ****ed up.

Others have managed to install XP on a SATA drive on that motherboard.

There's even one that spelt out how he did that in this newsgroup.

Curious.

Dont forget what that did to the cat.

Thanks for bearing with me. I'm learning from this.

I doubt it.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

There is a utility on the drivers CD that allows you to make a floppy
driver disk with the SATA drivers on it. But it's no use if you don't
have a floppy drive available.

You may be able to distill the diskimage contents from the program and
copy the drivers to the SATA using programs like WINRAR or WinIma-
ge but that is a bit of a hit and miss depending on what program is used

And no, XP will not let you specify where to look for the driver. A
major flaw if you ask me. I suppose that it's a blessing that we can
even install XP from a CD without a floppy,

unlike Win98 and W2K

Yeah, right.

with it's big stack of boot floppies.

Possible they'll fix this for Vista.

Presumably you mean fix the floppy/driverload issue.
Btw, even Win98 had problems with device selection sometimes but
usually some sequence with retry or cancel would get it in line again.

Small steps.

The funny thing is, naturally when XP saw the SATA drive, it prompted
me that it couldn't find any acceptable drives in which to install XP
on. After the 'put the driver disk in the A drive' bit, I told XP to
continue anyway. It then loaded what looked like a bunch of SCSI and
RAID drivers and then installed XP. If XP didn't have the SATA driver,
how did it manage to install onto it. And then why did it boot several
times and then all of the sudden decided it didn't know how to deal
with the SATA drive.

Because the install uses BIOS or some generic minimal driver and only in
the last stage it is Windows itself starting up and doing the last changes
and then runs into the missing driver and the drive disappears from it.

 

[dbubd]

You're pretty clever, Rod. It's reassuring to know there are people out
there, like you, that take time out of their schedule to provide
concise and valuable advice to less experienced computer users. I
followed all of your suggestions and now my computer is up and running
perfectly. I found the bit about how I ****ed up especially helpful. As
soon as I did that it all clicked into place. That was the missing
link, Rod. I'm sure everyone would agree that it took someone like
you to thoroughly analyze the problem and come up with a truly
'outside of the box' solution.

My hat goes off to you, Rod.

 

[Rod Speed]

Any 2 year old could leave that for dead, child.

You're pretty clever, Rod. It's reassuring to know there are people
out there, like you, that take time out of their schedule to provide
concise and valuable advice to less experienced computer users. I
followed all of your suggestions and now my computer is up and running
perfectly. I found the bit about how I ****ed up especially helpful.
As soon as I did that it all clicked into place. That was the missing
link, Rod. I'm sure everyone would agree that it took someone like
you to thoroughly analyze the problem and come up with a truly
'outside of the box' solution.

My hat goes off to you, Rod.