I had a problem with my hard drive, all that would happen is that various drive lights would stay on but no boot-up screen. So, I re-formatted the drive (had a prog to put 0's on it first) and then insatelled every thing (lots of updates). Now unless the XP disc is in it comes up with Sys boot error. Could my hard drive be US?
Start up fault
- Thread starter madmark
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David Lindon
Golden Master
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Yeah the hd could be on its way out. How old is it?
Kage
Golden Master
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When you say boot up screen, do you mean the windows one? I guess you do
Hmm... I wonder if it is set up right
Restart the machine and press del usually to bring up Bios. In the first one you come to i think, press enter. In there will be a list of boot devices. What could be happening is the hard drive isn't set as a boot device. In this case, change the 1st boot device to the cd rom (make sure no cd is in unless you want to boot from it) and set the 2nd boot device to the hard drive (ide-0/1) and the 3rd boot device (if it has one) to possibly the floppy drive.
This will then set it to work from the hard drive too. Press Escape until you get to the main menu of the bios, and press enter on Save And Exit to save the changes, and then Y and enter.
I'm wondering if putting the Windows Disc in is making it carry on booting from where Windows is installed. ...I might be wrong though as it would usually start Setup. Just try anyway.
but make sure no disc is in to test if it sees the hard drive and boots from it (including CD and Floppy drive)
This will hopefully work
Hmm... I wonder if it is set up right
Restart the machine and press del usually to bring up Bios. In the first one you come to i think, press enter. In there will be a list of boot devices. What could be happening is the hard drive isn't set as a boot device. In this case, change the 1st boot device to the cd rom (make sure no cd is in unless you want to boot from it) and set the 2nd boot device to the hard drive (ide-0/1) and the 3rd boot device (if it has one) to possibly the floppy drive.
This will then set it to work from the hard drive too. Press Escape until you get to the main menu of the bios, and press enter on Save And Exit to save the changes, and then Y and enter.
I'm wondering if putting the Windows Disc in is making it carry on booting from where Windows is installed. ...I might be wrong though as it would usually start Setup. Just try anyway.
but make sure no disc is in to test if it sees the hard drive and boots from it (including CD and Floppy drive)
This will hopefully work
Thanks for you replies.
The HD is around 2 years old.
When I start up I get:
what my motherboard is
what my processor is
what my memory is
what my primary master is (HD)
what my secondary master and slave is
what the PCI setting are
Then it says veryfing DMI pool data
followed by,
BOOT FROM ATAPI CD-ROM (TWICE)
THEN DISK BOOT FAILURE INSERT SYS DISK AND PRESS ENTER.
Once thats done it starts fine.
The HD is around 2 years old.
When I start up I get:
what my motherboard is
what my processor is
what my memory is
what my primary master is (HD)
what my secondary master and slave is
what the PCI setting are
Then it says veryfing DMI pool data
followed by,
BOOT FROM ATAPI CD-ROM (TWICE)
THEN DISK BOOT FAILURE INSERT SYS DISK AND PRESS ENTER.
Once thats done it starts fine.
Kage
Golden Master
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- 13,873
Yeah, this is because it can't find the C drive until it finds it.
Have you followed my instructions through? it'll sort it out so it knows where it is all the time so you won't have to place the CD rom in.
It is first reading the CD (This is okay, but will only show if a CD is in the drive)
and the disc boot failure is because it doesn't know where the boot sector is to find Windows (can't find the hard drive in other words)
Hope this helps, and I hope the instructions above are clear enough for you
Have you followed my instructions through? it'll sort it out so it knows where it is all the time so you won't have to place the CD rom in.
It is first reading the CD (This is okay, but will only show if a CD is in the drive)
and the disc boot failure is because it doesn't know where the boot sector is to find Windows (can't find the hard drive in other words)
Hope this helps, and I hope the instructions above are clear enough for you
Have tried all that but stil the same. When you reformat and reinstall windows, should you first have SYS installed on the HD? If so, then I forgot to, would this cause the problem and if thats the case then how do I overcome this without starting all over again from scratch?
Kage
Golden Master
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i'm afraid i don't know what you mean by SYS.
i looked back though at your post, and you say that after it has come up with that message twice, and then that error message, pressing enter starts it up fine?
because sorry. I must have been confused that day because if your hard drive wasn't set up right in bios. It wouldn't work at all, and would keep looping that message.
I wonder what else it could be. You don't by any chance have a floppy drive in your computer do you? Thugh this wouldn't cause that stupid cd rom wiv windows problem...
I'm sorry about this. I think I'm a bit stuck now
i looked back though at your post, and you say that after it has come up with that message twice, and then that error message, pressing enter starts it up fine?
because sorry. I must have been confused that day because if your hard drive wasn't set up right in bios. It wouldn't work at all, and would keep looping that message.
I wonder what else it could be. You don't by any chance have a floppy drive in your computer do you? Thugh this wouldn't cause that stupid cd rom wiv windows problem...
I'm sorry about this. I think I'm a bit stuck now
I think that ATAPI is used when first starting to re-install windows (basic driver set to allow using the CD-rom). Could that have gotten on to my drive somehow?
By SYS (that's what appears on the screen) I think it means SYSTEM files for starting the installtion process.
I think I might have to save everything and try re-formatting again (so tedious), or, I might live with it for now.
Thanks again for your help.
By SYS (that's what appears on the screen) I think it means SYSTEM files for starting the installtion process.
I think I might have to save everything and try re-formatting again (so tedious), or, I might live with it for now.
Thanks again for your help.
Kage
Golden Master
- Messages
- 13,873
Maybe, though I wouldn't know much about that.
I'd reformat again to tell the truth and would be worthwhile in the end, though unless you know what casued the problem last time, it could happen again.
Doesn't seem to be causing that much of a problem though, does it?
I'd reformat again to tell the truth and would be worthwhile in the end, though unless you know what casued the problem last time, it could happen again.
Doesn't seem to be causing that much of a problem though, does it?