Disk Boot Failure. Please Help Me!

Bad RAM.
http://www.memtest86.com

Download and run- see if you get errors.

thanks for the help but I have trouble believing that that is the issue. My motherboard manufacturer recomended the RAM that I'm using after I have trouble with my first RAM choice. Also On Corsair's website, the memory I have is what they recomend for my mobo. Is it a voltage issue?

Also, since this is my first boot, I don't think I can get a hold of that software you recomended since I have no opperating system on it yet.

Need a little bit more info!

What exactly hapens when you turn on the PC? Just the error? Beeps?

In the Bios do you have your CD set as a bootable device (it should be by default).

After exiting the Bios and attempting to start is it THEN recognizing everything in the boot sequence?

Make sure you have quick boot turned OFF. So you can see the post info. You can enable it later when things are fixed.

Enter the BIOS, Boot Options tab and make sure that in the Boot Order your CD device is listed BEFORE any HD.

You running raid?
Make sure you are booting from your CD first.
Just because its recomended ram doesnt mean the ram is faulty.
You have inserted your windows cdrom into the toaster.


Need more info

You can tell if the RAM has problems if you try to boot up and it makes beeping and/or weird noises, happened quite a bit to me. Raid caused problems before, so it could be that, but either way, system specs will be needed.

Who made him angry??? hes not comming back to the forums.


Now we will never know his real issue.


Memory? raid? bad hdd? ..... boo for suspence

First off, I'd like to say that I'm very pleased with the amount of people who are willing to help me, and the speed at which everyone did so. Thanks a lot!

Ok here's the deal (hopefully detailed enough)

First off, When I boot up, everything seems to be going fine. Memeory test is fine, CPU is recognized. Then IT checks for HD's, and my 250gb SATA is recognized as the Primary Slave. I don't know if these should be set as masters, let me know on that.

Next, a big table of all my PCI Device (PCI Device Listing)

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

thats the order of how it all goes down. Here are some other responses to issues.

No Beeping due to RAM (or at all for that matter)

First Boot device is set as CD ROM in BIOS (I have a dvd rom, should that matter)

I think this answers all the questions.

THanks again everyone!  

also its my only drive, no RAID

Plug in the sata drive into the other sata connection (if you have only 2) otherwise you will need to read the text on the mobo to find out which is primary (usualy named P0). Secondly.... do you have a floppy in the drive? lol seen that a million times.

Next, disable the boot from the HDD entirely. Just boot from the CD rom and no other choices. Then you may need to press f6 during the windows install startup to load the sata drivers. (depends on a few things).

Next... is that hard drive even formated? Or maybe it is new which is why your tryn to boot up with the Windows Disk. If its not formatted it will give an error.

Let me know if any of these help and if not I will think of more things....
You sure your not booting from a toaster? that would explain everything.

well get a copy of ultimate boot cd. its a cd with diagnostic programs.


well also try installing a raid that might be ur problem. make sure ur bios is set to sata hardisk

heres a guide to install a raid raid install guide using nvidia drivers

cheers goodluck

Wha!? First, he cant boot to cd at this moment. Secondly, why would installing a raid array help this current issue? not to mention if he has information on that drive it will be wiped when he "installs" a raid.

Goofy.

I agree thta that seems a bit odd, but my new drive i new and empty

Well problem solved.

Thats the error your going to get untill you format it during the windows installation process.

So no need to do anything else, except for putting that sata cable in the right connection.

here's another question:
I have an external HD. I noticed thta using a USB HD is one of the boot options. Could I just INstall Windows on this drive and do it that way. If so, how exactly do you recomend i pull it off. (I would install it using the computer I'm surrently on)

I havent tried it before but your going to run into problems during Windows installation. XP does not support installing to USB (someone correct me if im wrong). .... Thinking about it more, I dont think its possible for me to explain how many ways it could go wrong. You would have problems with drive letters changing, the boot.ini not pointing to the correct location... If the external has hibernation capibilities that could take the system down...


Just ... dont.

If you want a removable drive for your OS, get a removable ATA bay from Compusa.

fair enough. thanks

So i tried disabling my other (2nd and 3rd) boot devices and still got the error. Now its clear that I'ma beginner no my conclusions don't mean much, but I think that somehow my disk drive is not being recognized by my motherboard. I don't see that the hard drive has anything to do with it at this stage. Obviously there is a fairly sizeable chance that I'm way off, but if that is the case, why might this be happening.

Again thats to all, especially Comptia_Rep. The fact that I've gotten so much feedback in 2 hours is really great!

Well that error is because the drive is not formated yet. If your still getting that error before the system boots to CD... unplug the hard drive and boot just to see if anything changes.

If you dont get that error it means there is a problem inside the bios. Can you browse around the bios to see if it shows your hard drive brand, and also size ?? Is the size reporting the correct info?

Which IDE socket have you used, If the board has 2 of then, try the other one.

When you are in the bios, can you see the DVDROM drive listed?

K Rman,

You did not say that you CD was recognized just your 250gb sata drive.

Second most dvd/cd/cd-+r drives are NOT SATA it is normally an IDE interface to the CD drive. Unless you have one of the few SATA optical drives like a Plextor you will have an IDE connection.

Second your drive is registering as primary slave? It should be the Master since it is the only HDD on the SATA port. the jumpers on the back of the HDD are probably set to CS or "cable select" from the factory. You can fix this by changing the drive to MASTER.

Also since you are using a mix of drive types (likely) being SATA and IDE you will have to enable BOTH in your bios. There is usually an auto detec in the bios that should show you BOTH your CD drive and HDD when configured correctly.

Hope this helps!!

Comptia,

I think the SATA drive is no worries.

I think he is not having his Optical drive recognized. Once recognized he should set it to the ONLY boot device in the Bios and it should be good to go then.

Also, Rman,

Look at the front of the machine while booting and make sure the Optical drive light comes on!! It should blink as if the drive is searching for something!

Man, I hope you aren't really comptia certified, if so give it back.

If he gets that error it means the boot to cd ISN'T working and it's going straight to the HD or he doesn't have a good cd/reader! It doesn't matter what port his HD's are in or even have anything to do with HD's. You can even boot the windows installer off CD without a hard drive in the system.

Work the problem from the beginning, not the middle. What's the first thing you should see when installing XP on a new HD after POST? Either 'Press anykey to start setup' or an immediate message saying 'Windows is checking yada yada yada' or whatever the messages actually are.

What model board do you have? As long as you set the optical drive as first boot device, there is nothing else you can do, if you don't get a 'Press anykey to start setup" or whatever, you'r optical drive is either bad or the MB ide port is bad, or the jumper on the drive is set wrong. If the bios sees the drive the jumpers aren't the problem, it's either bad media or drive.

It won't matter what ide port or master/slave you have set, you can boot from any of them.

Try the cd in another computer to see if it boots.

Also completely unrelated to your actual problem but brought up by some other dude, your ram can be bad even if it doesn't beep on boot, the bios check is a very BASIC test of memory worthiness, always run memtest if you suspect ram issues, this is most certainly not your problem however.

Also you need to make sure your optical drive is set to either CS or Master (I prefer to set my drives manually and not use cable select).

It doesn't NEED to be set to one of those, CS will work just fine with 99.9% of boards. Though I do recommend you set it as master if you have no hd's on IDE channels.

That was the reason for my recommendation!!

It appears he has:

1 HDD SATA

1 OPTICAL drive (probably IDE)

I know, I'm just a stickler for the word NEED not being used correctly  

RMan,

Just so you know CS normally means that the drive configures itself based upon ists position on the cable in the middle or at the end.

Have seen it time and time agian, bad RAM causing weird problems. It does not matter if its the RAM your mobo manufactor told you to buy, it can still be faulty  .

You don't need an OS to run Memtest86. It creates a floppy with its own OS. Ultimate Boot CD works too.

is there any significance to the fact that my HDD is a slave. With this work if it is a master.

More broadly, Am I understanding correctly that the reason that my disk drive is not being read is because the boot up procedure checks the HDD first, and if there is somthing wrong with that then it never even gets to the disk drive? If so, why is it telling me to insert a disk?

Man this is slightly more confusing than I thought it would be

Rman,

Check that in bios you can actually see your DVDrom drive listed.

will it be listed as an IDE Deivce? The obvious answer to this would seem to be yes, but if this is so then I have some more question (bear with me here)

When I change the SATA port my HDD is plugged into, it shows up in a different spot in the BIOS's list of IDE channels? Why is this? Also, where do I look to see if my DVDROM is detected (manual is quite confusing). Because It is not listed as being in one of the IDE Channels.

THanks again all.

OK, now where getting somewhere.

unplug your HDD and run your bios.

See if the DVD is listed now.

nope

Check that it is connected correctly.

Check power to drive.

Check the bios is set to allow IDE drives not just SATA.

Rman,

Have you got it connected to the green or red IDE connector.

Take the advice of other poster's here and run memtest. You're wasting people's time otherwise.
I had the same error initially with my AM2 build. I flashed the BIOS to an updated version, and ran Memtest86 where many errors were reported.
The board was the ASUS M2N-E, and the memory was OCZ Gold series.

I'm not saying the memtest will definitely report errors back, but it's your best bet as of now. Let it run over night.

Arby,

He does not have his Optical drive being recognized.

That is the problem....

Need to walk him through the Bios to enable the PATA and SATA ports and verify the device is found first.

Ok well now that I've been completely embarassed (it was a loose IDE connection) I have another issue, which I suspect realtes to previous comment about HDD configuration. Quoth the Blue Screen of Death:

A Problem has been detected ad windows has been shut down to prevent dmamage to your computer

If this is the first time you've seens this Stop error screen, restart your computer. IF this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and the restart your computer.


GOd Damn, I was so hapy for a minute there too

by the way, this happens after a considerable amount of installation has happened. It is not instantaneous, if that matters.

No worries it happens...

Now you are getting somewhere.

K,

Now you need to set your HDD to Master please. The jumpers on the back of the drive allow you to do this. This step is not necessary usually but better to eliminate possible issues.

You should also do the same for your CD drive...


Then try again to re-install.

You will not even need to enter the Bios at all after these changes..

Rman, you have a PM

OK.

Now I think it is Windows not using the correct SATA drive.

Have you got a floppy drive?

Get the SATA Drive for use with F6

The ATA preinstallation one.

don't know what that mean but your help is most appreciated. Thanks a bunch!

Don't know about the PM or the jumpers?

The PM tab near the top of the forums page ^^^ click it.

Private Message

also how do the jumpers work? Just cap with a little platic thing or what? (yes I'm totally clueless)

and the PM was what I didn't know the meaning of, but I guess you could say both  

Man, I hope you aren't really comptia certified, if so give it back.

If he gets that error it means the boot to cd ISN'T working and it's going straight to the HD or he doesn't have a good cd/reader! It doesn't matter what port his HD's are in or even have anything to do with HD's. You can even boot the windows installer off CD without a hard drive in the system.


And if he didn't have a formatted hard drive what would happen then? Ah that's right, same thing.

I honestly don't know if it matters today, but it did in the past, regarding you had your hard drive on, CS, Master, Slave... I assume that's what you're talking about when you say "ports"

just as i was typing that I figured out the PM thing.

'

Usually on the back of the drive you can determine how you want the drive set on the cable.

You can leave it as CS (Cable Select) and put it at the end of an IDE cable (granted it's IDE) and it will take the role of master. I honestly don't know what happens if you put a hard drive set as master in the position of slave (most likely some errors, again granted you have an IDE drive).

With SATA it's a bit different as you can only have 1 device per channel. (I may not be saying this technically correct, but I will leave it to someone else to correct me). So leaving a SATA drive as CS or Master should work fine.

The jumpers are on the back of the drive and usually there is a diagram on the top of the drive that indicates what positions determine which priority.