boot disk message

[Airpan]

I powered up my PC tonight and it went through its usual booting up procedure until it got to the following process. It then states, "Detecting IDE drives...

Verifying DMI Pool data............update success.

Boot from CD:
Boot from CD:
Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter."

I opened the case after shutting down and made sure the cables were secure to everything and dusted things off a bit, in the obviously inept hope, that this might have some positive influence on the situation. I have never gotten this error before and am not sure why it is trying to boot from CD in the first place, as I do not recall it trying to do that in the past. Can someone tell me some steps to take to start narrowing down the issue? I have a suspicion that the A: drive may be bad, but that is a guess. Is it possible that the CD Rom drive is bad and if so, can this cause the issue? Also, I do not have a system disk - is that the same as a boot disk?

 

[Freestone]

Check the boot order in BIOS. I suspect you will see your CD-ROM drive in there after the hard drive. While in BIOS see if the hard drive is detected. If it isn't and your CD-ROM is in the boot sequence, you will get the Boot from CD message.

 

[vacunita]

As Freestone said check that the hard drive is actually being detected by the bios. As it would be the most obvious cause of the machine trying to boot from the CD, because if it can't find the hard drive it tries to boot from the next thing in the boot sequence, in this case most probably the CD-ROM.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Airpan]

OK guys will double check but if memory serves, when I went into my bios, I saw that the boot sequence was set up to be the Floppy and then the HDD. So just to recap, someone please confirm... I want to change this to indicate that the HDD is the first in the boot sequence? then the CD rom?

 

[edfair]

You don't need to change anything. Just verify what you have so you can understand what is happening.

It is likely that your hard drive has failed in some way. The first step is to see how CMOS is set to see it, then to detect whether it is there. If it is not there you can't boot from it and the system then tries the next specified device.

If it is detected but doesn't boot you have lost something from the drive, partition table or MBR.

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

 

[Airpan]

How exactly do I tell if the Hard drive is being detected? I am not sure what to look for in BIOS... can someone give me some sort of outline of steps to follow when I go into BIOS? I know there are CMOS settings and didn't really look at those. Sorry if I am being a bit dense but don't really crawl around in my BIOS much - also, if this makes any bit of difference, I have a dual BIOS.

Thanks again.

 

[edfair]

Some have a operation area at the bottom of the screen with a function key to detect drives.
Others require you to select auto for drive type and it displays as part of the BIOS splash screen.

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

 

[vacunita]

When inside the BIOS Setup the drives should appear in the main page or there's usually a section for IDE configuration look in there and see if the Hard Drive is listed. It should list the Manufacturer and then the model something like:

[red]Primary Master: Manufacturer Model[/red]
Primary Slave: Some Cd Rom
Secondary Master: Not Detected
Secondary Slave: Not Detected

Tell us what is detected.





----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Airpan]

vacunita,
thank you for answering my question for directions - you rock. I will give that a try and will post back tonight.
:O)

 

[Airpan]

Well I figured out that my hard drive is bad... unfortunately I had to take it to a friend of mine in the hopes that he can copy some of the information onto the new one... I appreciate everyone's help and by the way, vacunita, I was able to determine that the hard drive was not working b/c I checked the settings and even after I changed them in BIOS to try to get it to recognize the hard drive, I could hear the hard drive clicking really bad. I quickly shut down and called my friend. Thanks again.

 

[vacunita]

Too bad its clicking, that's a sure sign of failure, i hope your friend can get your info out, before it dies completely.

In any case take it as a learning experience, and start looking for a new HD.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.