Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press Enter 3

[KingofSnake]

I have no idea why this is happening, but today I went to turn on my computer on when my BIOS got to "Detecting Primary Master [Press F4 to Skip]", my computer emmited this terrible scary dot-matrix printer type scaning/(scraping?) sound. After a little more loading stuff, but before Windows 98 is loaded, I get "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER".

This freaked me out, because I haven't made a boot disk! Luckily, I reset the computer (and I got the same scary dot-matrix printer sound), but no DISK BOOT FAILURE error message.

I've made a boot disk to be safe, but now I'm scared to shut this computer down for fear of killing something.
KingOfSnake - The only sports drink with ice crystals
(and marshmellos!)

 

[Win98User]

Hi Grenage,
I'm never in a bad mood when I can banter with good folks like yourself.

From my own experience, Fujitsu hard drives have been the most problematic ones I have used. Prone to failure for no good reason - I now stay clear of them.

Regards.

 

[udaisengupta]

Win98User appears to be from the Fujitsu Co. himself

Sorry old chap, in your shoes with the kind of posts that I have made, I would have been peeved too. Understandably, my suggestions were very off-handed. I apologize to you all for wasting your time.

Sorry once again. Best Regards,
Yours sincerely,
Udai.

 

[Win98User]

udaisengupta,
There is no need to apologise - humour should never be shunned and abused.

Your tongue in cheek comments were doused with some very valid points and those of us who are willing to look past what is on the surface can see their worth.

There is nothing wrong with brainstorming or trying to give flight to fanciful ideas.

After all, didn't Clive Sinclair give us the ZX80, ZX81 and the Sinclair Spectrum series (in the uk at least). Did he not then go forward with the ill-fated C5 venture? But lo, even that had its value as we see today with Citroen's version of the C5.

Progress brings change and old ideas are often renewed.

;-)

Regards,

John.
The views expressed by the author are not necessarily held by the author.

 

[ANFPS26]

udaisengupta, your tip about freezing the hard drive has been discussed in this forum many times. It was a trick that used to work in the early days of hard drive technology, but not so much any more. If it's a last ditch effort, and the drive is toast anyway, try it and it might resurrect the drive long enough to retrieve the data. These new guys haven't heard of it, so they think it's funny and a joke. There was a time when it was no joke. Jim

Please come back and let us know if your
problem is fixed and what fixed it!!

 

[Win98User]

ANFPS26,
Nice of you to call me a new guy (or were you talking about
Grenage?).

Equally nice of you to make assumptions about what I know and don't know, lol, (or were you talking about
Grenage?).

I remember the days, when a 500Mb hard drive was recieved with cries of, "What, that will last for years, you'll never fill it". - I also have memories from before then, because that was only 12 to 14 years ago.

I also acknowledged udaisengupta post as containing valid points - But, I still hold to the fact that putting "today's" hard drives into a freezer isn't something that should be talked about without covering the principles of Health and Safety, not to mention that doing so may invalidate a warranty - (that is my feeble attempt at humour).

Incidentally, I know 1 or 2 people in the "biz" (of many years standing) and I have yet to come across anyone that has ever tried it.

I know a little bit about maths and a little bit about physics - and whether you put something into a freezer and bring it up to room temperature or just stick it in front of a fan blowing cold air, the cooling effect is just the same - without the condensation problem, of course!

Anyone who claims to have revived a deceased hard drive by freezing it, didn't check it out properly before putting it into the freezer.

Regards,

John.
I like to be proved wrong, it furthers my knowledge.

 

[ANFPS26]

My only point was that it was once on the list of "things to try". It's right up there with "brogan maintenance" (you give it a swift kick with your shoe and sometimes it revives whatever is broken.)Ha. Another method is to say a prayer and cross your fingers. I've tried all of those (and more) in the past. I wouldn't do any of these to anything under warrenty. These are all desperate acts for desperate people. Sometimes they work and it's chaulked up to "FM" and the last word is "Magic" (you can figure out the first.)
Jim

Please come back and let us know if your
problem is fixed and what fixed it!!

 

[ceh4702]

I have had an IBM drive make this horrible sound. I ran scandisk from the boot disk and it took for ever for Scandisk to get past that point, but it did eventually complete a surface scan. When the heads approach this sector or whatever on the drive the sound is made by the hard drive trying to keep rereading the same area repeatedly. Since then my hard drive has been running great without a hitch. Keep in mind that most IBM hard drives have a longer warranty period. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[Grenage]

You are quite right I had not heard of freezing a Hard Drive before, still Not something I would do even if the air was completely dry

I never started getting into computers until the 4.3gb Quantum Bigfoots came out, and even then "getting into" isn't quite the same as "starting to learn about".

 

[ANFPS26]

Another thread on "freezing" the harddrive:

http://lug.kamloops.net/pipermail/lug/2000-October/000133.html

Another:

http://phenomfx.com/Tech_tips/messages/3.html

Another:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win98/Q_20327681.html

This has become an "old wives tale", but people still swear it works. Do a Google search on "hard drive freezer". Jim

Please come back and let us know if your
problem is fixed and what fixed it!!

 

[shirleyowl]

WEll this has certainly generated a lot of posts. It is interesting to hear about the Fujitsu drive problem I must check to see what they put in as a replacement. and try to regain my old drive.
Thanks so much to everyone who has helped. The only good thing that came out of it was I got rid of all the rubbish I had meaning to clear out. Trouble with uninstalling things is they tend to leave little bits of themselves behind. Anyone know how a NON Tecchy when it comes down to the real basics gets over this problem I want to avoid it in the future, Freeware is best, I have spent quite enough on this machine to last a couple of years now.
Thanks once again
to you all
and a Very Merry Hic!Christmas to everyone who celebrates the season.
Cheers
Shirey Learn something new every day.

 

[jbmprods]

hi guys and gals im new here so go easy on me lol. I've read with great interest all your posts and hopefuly learned from each. first i flunked spelling so dont go there. ok with that said i do a limited amount of data recovery purely because people do tend to learn from costly mistakes. the theory of freezing a hard drive is not to rebuild a failed unit but to cool it to be able to buy as much time as allowable to succesfuly clone the data onto a good drive before the temp rises and the drive crashes big time. i dont think any of you would dispute the fact that heat on a hard drive is its major source of premature failure. i do not use a freezer although it can be done with proper precautions. the method that i use is wraping the drive in a towel and container and use dry ice to keep it chilled while attempting to hopefully recover the data which should have been properly backed up but wasn't. this method is used as a last resort and works quite well for data recovery but it is not a fix. thanks for reading my two cents worth have a great christmas......Jim

 

[shirleyowl]

HI JBMPRODS
Welcome to this forum and site which is great.
I am even less of a tecchy than you but I find it so useful and have even added my twopennence worth of advice rarely.

seasonal salutations

Everyone helps a little or a lot.
Cheers
Shirey.
Learn something new every day.

 

[ADNova]

Check your boot order in the bios after you have saved as much data as you can and checked all of your connections, change the boot order alternating between the different boot devices to see if your getting the sound from one of the drives. If it is your hdd making this sound, your lucky its booting at all and probably won't next time.
Good idea to disconnect any periphial devices too.
This has probably been presented here somewhere, but Im new here, havent had time to check them out.
Ow u doin?

ADNova.