Disk Boot Failure: Insert System Disk and press Enter

[jabberwock95]

It never rains but it pours. I have a large problem and I could use some of that friendly advice.

My mothers computer has stopped working. It will no longer boot into windows (even in safe mode) and shows all the signs of a hard drive failure. I have never had problems with this machines HDD before, it has always been very reliable. It seems strange it would come on all of a sudden.

When I try to boot the machine, it displays 'Detecting IDE Drives...' for a couple of seconds then:

Primary Master: None
Primary Slave: None

It detects the two optical drives (secondary master and secondary slave) with no problems. Then the error message appears: 'Disk Boot Failure: Insert System Disk and press Enter'. And it goes no further.

I have tried booting from a boot floppy. It works, but I can still not access the C: drive. It has some error message about C: not being a properly partitioned drive. Because of this I can't run Scandisk, Chkdsk or Scanreg. I also can't find my product recovery CD-ROM, but how would this help if it can't detect the HDD?

I would REALLY not like to lose all of the stuff on that drive, it has some pretty irreplaceable things on it. I can't think of anything else to do other than try the hard drive in my machine, but I've never attached a slave drive before and something might go wrong. It's out of warrenty, I could take it in for repair but I expect they'd just change the HDD.

I'm at my wits end, can anyone out there help me? Help, Advice, Suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[The Dark Elf]

maybe the FAT table is damaged?

or its forgotton which is the active partition?

hmm i don't know, but its not a nice thing to happen ;(

 

[blahblahblah]

Open up your case and remove your IDE cables and molex power plugs from your harddrive and then plug them back in.

Also, has the harddrive made any funny noises recently (louder noises, whinning, excess disk activity, etc)?

 

[jabberwock95]

maybe the FAT table is damaged?

or its forgotton which is the active partition?

hmm i don't know, but its not a nice thing to happen ;(

If it had forgotton the active partition then it wouldn't explain why it can't detect the HD at all. Plus I think when it was saying drive C: wasn't partitioned it really meant the boot floppy I put it. The floppy must have set itself up as drive C: for some reason because when I did a dir command it listed the files on the boot floppy.

And you're right, it isn't very nice. I'm just very glad it happened to my mums crappy computer and not to my wonderful, HL2-ready computer.

 

[jabberwock95]

Open up your case and remove your IDE cables and molex power plugs from your harddrive and then plug them back in.

Also, has the harddrive made any funny noises recently (louder noises, whinning, excess disk activity, etc)?

I was just about to try that, i'll tell you if it works.

No, no unusual activity or noise.

 

[h4vvok]

Replace the IDE cables, one of them coulda quit on you.....and maybe the Master Boot Record has a virus, could be many possibilities to this problem.

 

[Hazar]

It also could be the motherboard. The IDE bus could be shot. It's happened to me.

 

[SidewinderX]

hapopened to me when i was trying to move some RAM. make sure the IDE cables are plugged in.

 

[jabberwock95]

Well, I feel like a fool now. I took it apart, hoovered it out and put it back together. It works. So much for my 'massive problem' I was worrying about all last night. It must have been a loose cable, but i'll never find out which one.

An untraceable problem. Just one of the joys of computer ownership. Never a dull moment with so many things to go wrong! To a norman person, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. To a computer engineer, if it ain't broke, it don't have enough features yet.

Sorry to have troubled anyone, but it really is great to know that I have somebody who will give me friendly, impartial, helpful advice without money changing hands. Thanks again!

 

[jabberwock95]

KABAM! Don't you love it when a computer causes you to bang your head against the wall?

One day after I had 'fixed' the computer, it failed again. Exactly the same as before, only this time taking out the cables and returning them won't do the trick. I suspect Total Hard Drive Failure.

I suspect the proble is the HD for several reasons:

1. When I try to boot the system, the HD does not spin up or make any sound whatsoever.

2. I have tried I different power connector, IDE cable and socket to no avail.

3. The other components (eg. CD-ROM drive) in the PC are working correctly, so it's not the PSU.

4. I have tried the drive in a completely different system and it was not recognised by the BIOS.

5. I have vented my frustrations on the HD (yelling at it, shaking it, threatening it) and not only did it not make it work, it did not make me feel any better.

And the number one reason:

6. The warrenty expired recently.

I think it's a pretty safe assumption, yes? I have just found my Windows ME CD-Rom, so unless a repair place I am taking it to tomorrow makes me a riduculously low offer, I am going to have a bash at repairing it myself.

I have sourced a cheap HDD on ebuyer.co.uk, (see it here ) and I think I have the required knowledge to fit it, run FDISK, format it and install Windows ME. It's unfortunate to lose all of the data on the drive, but I don't think I have any other options at the moment.

Now I know for a fact that lots of the people who read these forums (and care enough to reply to this) are pretty experianced. So:
Do you think I am doing the right thing?
Do you think I have enough proof that it is the drive that has failed?

Do you think I am the sort of ham-fisted idiot who would try and install a hard drive with a chisel, in a PCI slot, with lugnuts, and then complain to the website that they are selling faulty merchandise, and threaten to sue them for a million pounds?

Any advice welcomed.

 

[Maxi]

Put the HD in the computer your now on, and try to see if you can find it with that computer, first try going in the bios and then see if it sees it, then boot into windows and if it finds it then run scandisk, defrag etc. To see if there are any errors on the disk. That's a pretty surefire way of telling if there's something wrong with the windows on the drive, the driver or the other computers motherboard.

 

[jabberwock95]

Put the HD in the computer your now on, and try to see if you can find it with that computer, first try going in the bios and then see if it sees it, then boot into windows and if it finds it then run scandisk, defrag etc. To see if there are any errors on the disk. That's a pretty surefire way of telling if there's something wrong with the windows on the drive, the driver or the other computers motherboard.

I have tried the HD on an old junk computer I have lying around. Pretty much the only thing wrong with it was that it had no hard drive (ARGH!). When I tried to boot it, I got 'No Operating System Found', and when I tried it with the hard drive... Same thing. The BIOS couldn't auto-detect it either.

I would try it out as a slave drive on this computer, but I would be really scared of making something go wrong (If I trash both computers I am royally screwed). Do you think it's safe enough for me to try?

 

[Unfocused]

I have the same problem sometimes. It is a loose cable in my case. I just move sideways until I hear a "wheeeezzzzzzz" sound (the sound of it starting to run).

 

[GreasedNeut]

the exact same thing happened to me on my computer, i cleared cmos and it worked

 

[jabberwock95]

the exact same thing happened to me on my computer, i cleared cmos and it worked

How do you mean, you cleared CMOS? You removed the battery?

What important settings are there in CMOS? How would I replace them?

 

[blahblahblah]

How do you mean, you cleared CMOS? You removed the battery?

What important settings are there in CMOS? How would I replace them?

It keeps your bios settings. Unless you have special settings (which it sounds like you don't), resetting the CMOS (which resets yoru bios to its default settings) will not affect you in any way shape or form. It could be a possible solution to your problem.

 

[Asus]

Sometimes a bad drive will work for a short time if you have let it sit.
If you get it back up, copy all the important files. Whenever there is a chance the harddrive could be going bad, that is the first thing you should do.

I would take out the other drives except for that harddrive to see if you can get it to work. Set it to master if it already isn't.

If nothing else has worked so far and it could be that the head isn't reading the drive, I have heard of people putting the drive in a plastic bag and then in the freezer for an hour to shrink the head. Might get it working for a short time just enough to get the data off.

Otherwise, just buy a new drive. Perferably one with a 3 Year warranty. Newegg sells OEM (WD) drives with a 3 Year warranty, I believe.

 

[blahblahblah]

If nothing else has worked so far and it could be that the head isn't reading the drive, I have heard of people putting the drive in a plastic bag and then in the freezer for an hour to shrink the head. Might get it working for a short time just enough to get the data off.

Learn something new everyday.

 

[jabberwock95]

Well, I might try clearing the CMOS. I could try putting the drive in the freezer eek and seeing if it works. I'll tell you what happens.

 

[Illegal Amigo]

Jabberwock95, it's possible that your IDE cable has simply gone bad. Try another one out before formatting. Also, I'd highly, highly, highly recommend downloading (or receiving one via mail for a negligible shipping and handling fee) an image of Knoppix. It's a Linux based operating system on a cd. No real knowledge of Linux is necessary, and it will boot the computer as long as the cd drive works. From there, you can still use the computer in the time being, as well as copy files if it recognizes the hard drive. I use it as a repair disk, in the event something goes wrong, and there's nothing that installs to the hard drive. The entire operating system is compressed on CD, and loads to the memory. You can find Knoppix on Sourceforge, or if all else fails, google it.

 

[jabberwock95]

Well, I went to the repair shoppy and asked them about my comp. They wanted to charge £40 to take a look at it and £50 if it needed a new HDD. No thanks.

I followed my gut and bought a new 40GB HDD for it. I installed it, FDISKed it, formatted it and reinstalled windows. Everything works perfectly. Thanks for all the advice guys. I'm really glad I got it fixed (plus the new HD is larger, faster and quieter than the old one).

The old HDD was a Fujitsu 20GB. I only had to mention this to the salesman and he told me Fujitsu drives were unreliable and expensive. This is the second Fujitsu HDD to fail on me in two years, so im inclined to agree. I went for a name brand this time, and got a Seagate Barracuda.

Illegal Amigo, I had already tried the HD in another computer with no joy, so I pretty much ruled out the IDE cable. Great Idea on the Knoppix though! I never knew an O/S could run from CD. Im going to download it and keep a copy as a repair disk.

As for the old drive, I may try installing it as a slave if I get around to it, see if windows can recover any data. There was nothing really important on it anyway.

Thanks again for everyones help.