Computer Techies - Boot Failure?

[Freyth]

While browsing CPF, my computer hung and sort of "crashed". When I restarted it, it stops and shows "BOOT CD/DVD FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISC AND PRESS ENTER" Anyone know what happened? My computer was working well the past few days or weeks or months.

 

[orionlion82]

take the disk out of your drive.

its looking for boot media, and if you have a cd/dvd/game in there it will balk.

should clear up after a reboot then.

if not you might have some hardware issues.
EDIT: that is to say it does not clear on its own and does actually require a boot disk for repair.
usually this is caused by data corruption.

 

[greenLED]

You may have:
- odd boot sequence looking for CD drive before loading HDD - access your BIOS setup and change the order so it boots from HDD first.

- an HDD failure (dead drive; I just went through this - it sucks) - not much you can do without significant work-arounds.

 

[Freyth]

Oh that really sucks. I've got TONS of important information on my HDD. I'm so screwed... Is there any way to retrieve information from a dead HDD? Man, I gotta start backing up all my stuff.

 

[matrixshaman]

Is your hard drive spinning up? Making odd sounds? If the drive sounds physically okay there are ways to recover data but may take some work or a tech to do so. Restorer 2000 Pro is a really good program. For drives with bad media Spinrite 6 may help as it actually reinforces weak media. Can you put the hard drive into another computer as a 2nd drive? If so you may be able to make recovery easier but be aware that if this was caused by a virus that you need good virus protection on the other computer. Good luck.

 

[orionlion82]

hey, wait - the sky isnt falling yet guys.

maybe it just needs a repair with a bootdisk.

for example if an OS file got corrupted.

just repair it and go. make the backups and keep an eye on it.

an actual hard disk failure is allmost never instant.
usually youll get SMART warnings well in advance.

 

[zelda]

"BOOT CD/DVD FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISC AND PRESS ENTER"

I think the HDD is fine. Unplug the CD/DVD-Drive and try it again.

If the HDD is not present, it would say something like "MBR not found"; "No Operation System found"

 

[jrmcferren]

You may have:
- odd boot sequence looking for CD drive before loading HDD - access your BIOS setup and change the order so it boots from HDD first.

- an HDD failure (dead drive; I just went through this - it sucks) - not much you can do without significant work-arounds.

A computer will not give a boot error with a non-bootable CD/DVD. A CD/DVD drive with a non-bootable disc will be seen as empty and will be skipped. His system may have a boot sequence of Floppy, HDD, CD/DVD. If That is the case his hard drive had a circuit board failure and may be recovered with a delicate circuit board transplant.

 

[eluminator]

But might a non-bootable hard drive also be skipped? Maybe a bad MBR could give this indication. Or a bad power supply or cable.

I would boot up something else and look around.

Here are a few things that should boot from CD or DVD.

A hard drive diagnostic. These would also boot from floppy. These would show you all your hard drives and will test them.

A memory diagnostic in case you have other problems. These can also be booted from floppy.

A live linux.

The ultimate boot CD for windows.

BartPE.

XP install CD. Even if the XP install CD shows the hard drive, I wouldn't necessarily re-install until I found out what was wrong.

 

[Freyth]

Funny thing is my computer doesn't have a floppy drive. Didn't include it when buying for parts.

 

[Coop]

Last time I saw this error it was caused by a busted cdrom drive.

Disable cdrom/dvd drives in the bios and make sure your HDD drive is the first boot device. Disconnect the cd/dvd drives from your computer and see f it boots.

Also, are there any USB drives/cardreaders with memorycards in them connected?

 

[eluminator]

Funny thing is my computer doesn't have a floppy drive. Didn't include it when buying for parts.

Makes sense to me. I haven't had a floppy drive for several years.

 

[tiktok 22]

Unless I shut it off in my BIOS, my Abit AN7 Mobo will show a floppy even though there isn't one.

 

[orionlion82]

Also, are there any USB drives/cardreaders with memorycards in them connected?

ohhh! thats a good one!
ive been bitten there before. especilly if bios is set to allow booting off it. winXP dosnt usually care, but linux usually hates those things plugged in at boot.

good thinking. that could be another angle.

 

[eluminator]

Unless I shut it off in my BIOS, my Abit AN7 Mobo will show a floppy even though there isn't one.

My computers do this also. Seems kinda weird to show a drive when there isn't one, but I guess it's normal.

 

[raggie33]

you have floopy enabled in the bios i bet go and unabale it in bios

 

[eluminator]

you have floopy enabled in the bios i bet go and unabale it in bios

I'm sure that would do it, but why bother? Does a phantom drive spook you out?

Well I guess there is a reason to get rid of it. If I accidentally click on it, I get the hourglass for about 5 seconds before XP pops up a window that says "Please insert a disk into drive A:"

 

[snakebite]

does the hdd spin as normal?
any unusual sounds?
detected in bios?
i do this type of troublshooting all day and there are lots of things to check before you panic.
even a crashed drive can be recovered.it is just costly.
i do it often for customers.involves board swaps,head stack swaps,software reconstruction of deleted files and partitions,ect.
go get the ultimate boot cd(ubcd)
get knoppix also.
if windows files are damaged causing no boot you can often mount the drive in linux and start k3b.
drag/drop to the cd/dvd project and burn them to disk.