Win2K won't boot from HD

[andy0646]

A bit odd this, The M/C in Question is A Slotek SL75 KVA, AMD Athlon 1.4 512 MB RAM, Maxtor 40 GB Radion 97000 Pro Gfx. Running Win2K SP3. It stopped booting from the HD, The M/C will boot from a floppy. I've attempted to run the Repair option, Which the console said the repair was complete, but still Won't boot from HD.

Any ideas?

 

[wolluf]

You ran repair - not recovery console? If so, you could try running recovery console and then fixboot (& fixmbr). You haven't given any error messages - or history as to when this started happening. Have you checked that ntfs, ntdetect.com & boot.ini are still present in the root of C:?

 

[andy0646]

Sorry, yes I ran recovery console, and fixed MBR, yes I checked ntfs, ntdetect.com & boot.ini. Which are present. The whole thing started after the Pc crashed running a cad/cam app. Now the user is no longer with us. Unless theres something hes fiddled with. Could he have alterd the Arc paths? so on boot up the boot.ini is looking else where? from where I stand everything looks good, no files missing and all the apps work? Just won't boot from HD

 

[wolluf]

did you run fixboot? (from recovery console - much more immportant than fixmbr)
You still haven't told us what error messages you get when trying to boot.
Have you checked boot.ini on hard drive has right values (ie, same a floppy version)?

 

[andy0646]

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK ect ect. I ran fixboot from the repair console.

 

[x2]

MIGHT BE LEFT FIELD, BUT HAVE YOU CHECKED THE BIOS. FOR THE CORRECT BOOT SETUP?

 

[wolluf]

Check the cabling - ie, that the drive's IDE cable is properly in place at both ends, and connectors are sound (no broken plastic tabs).

Try running chkdsk /F /X (it should run on reboot, before windows loads).

 

[andy0646]

bios C,D,A then set to failsafe defaults
Cables Fitted new

 

[andy0646]

Ran chkdsk /F /X. Still won't boot from the hard disk. Should I try Fixboot?

 

[RashMorbius]

Have you checked where your boot.ini file is pointing to?
You need to make sure that boot.ini is pointing to your winnt folder (or whatever folder you have the Win2000 files stored in), otherwise boot.ini cannot find where to load Win2000

 

[wolluf]

Andy - I suggested fixboot earlier & you said you had run it! - 'DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK ect ect. I ran fixboot from the repair console'

If you haven't, then please do!

 

[andy0646]

ran fixboot from rep console, still dead.

Boot.ini point to WINNT

 

[wolluf]

I did suggest checking cabling earlier - you said cabling new - but did you check it? I ask, as I had something similar a while back, where one of plastic tabs on the IDE connector was broken. The connector looked to be on properly - could only see when you pulled on cable - broken side came away. I was getting problems booting - but once booted, everything seemed fine. Thought I'd mention it, as what you've done should have got your boot back as far as I can see!

 

[andy0646]

the cables are new. Ok I went back into the repair console and ran map. This found A: D: Efloppy and cd roms) 2 other partions are shown but with no drive letter just a question mark (?)

no1 partion (0) harddisk(0) 0MB
no2 Partion (0) harddisk(1) lots of MB

Help ;(

 

[wolluf]

Ok - last ask - to me 'the cables are new' does not mean you've opened the case and checked they are ok and connected properly at both ends (I'm quite capable of not properly connecting a new cable from time to time). If it does, nothing lost.

 

[andy0646]

Right mate, I checked all cables. Plastic tabs are fine and not loose. The cables are the right way around and it is the correct 80 wire cable.
From the console the pc will not find C: I'm unable thru the repair console to access the C: drive using DOS commands.