BOOT DISK FAILURE

[Saboteur1985]

hi
i have a win xp machine (irrelivant really) which will no boot any operating system, it will install the os, but will not boot it, it simply beeps, and then tries the floppy disk, and displays the msg
BOOT DISK ERROR PLEASE INSTER SYSTEM DISK

it is a brand new hard drive, and also does the same on other drives.
the bios order is fine
the msg is displayed when the :
-cd is unpluged
-floppy is unpluged
the hd is set as the master, and is regonised at the post boot.
any and all possible help would be greatly appreciated

my computer is a HP pavillion 403.uk and it is 2 years old aka born 2002.

i do no know what may have happened to cause the error but any guidance would be much appreciated

yours
/Saboteur1985

 

[fenix]

some ideas and guesses for now until you get a more informed reply for what they're worth.

Although I'm not sure about the beep codes for your machine, if it beeps any thing other than a single short beep then the POST has not completed and there is a hardware problem, (99% of the bios codes: a single beep is GOOD). If it does anythng else, post it back here or do a search for beep codes for your machine. Has it ever worked or are you putting this machine togheter for the first time? Is the beep normal for when it was working ? How did you install an OS if the machine didn't recognize the CDROM drive ?????

Possibly the bios is corrupted by a virus, or just a failure, or is the wrong version for your chipset, etc.

It seems odd that it successfully installs an OS but then wont' boot to it. I don't think it applies in this case, but you might do a scandisk or checkdisk from an A prompt if you have an XP start floppy or a 9x start floppy.

Some more info as to if you tried the HD in other machines and/or if it ever worked in the present one or another. and brand of harddrive, could possibly help in diagnosing the prob.

 

[onrdbandit]

Howdy,

You say it is set as a master. Does that mean that the machine registers it as a master, or that the jumper is set at "master"? If it is a Western Digital HDD, and the drive is the only disk on the chain, pull the jumper altogether.

Other than that, I would just work from least extreme fix to most extreme fix. There are a few options here. I would try to reset the BIOS.

You said you can load OS, but not boot from it. So, you can boot from CD and format/install XP, then you cannot boot from HD? Is that correct? Now I assume the CD and HDD are not on the same IDE chain. Try swapping the IDE cables and see if that changes anything. If not, try changing the chains that each is connected to and see how far you can get. If still nothing, I would try flashing the BIOS.

If the drive is 40GB or larger, and it most likely is, then your board may not be able to see such a drive. A BIOS flash MIGHT fix it, though I doubt this is the case from what I can dig up on the board.

Good luck,
onrdbandit

No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

 

[franklin97355]

HPs have historically used cable select with their hard drives. You might try that and see what happens.

 

[edfair]

Would be interested to know the results if you were to do a fdisk /mbr first. And if that didn't work, a zero fill first.
There have been several virii in the past that had code to relocate the partition table, and if I recall correctly, partial removal left the drive in an undetermined state.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[ziptop]

Does the BIOS recognise the drive correctly (for its size etc)? Does the Win XP install disk recognise the drive correctly during set-up? You can check this by using the install disk to format and partition the Hard Drive as NTFS. You should see the correct size of the HD (or near enough) displayed when you partition.
If it can do all of that then there is probably more going RIGHT with your system than there is going wrong so you are off to a start at least.

 

[Frank4d]

I would hope the problem has been fixed after five months.

 

[Saboteur1985]

thanks for your help, it turned out to be a loose wire i believe. owever thank you very much for your help