OK, well my friends computer gets this message when it goes to boot, Boot Failure: System Halted. He has a gateway and I don't know the model number because he put the gateway parts in a new case he bought. The computer has been working fine in the new case for some time. Here's what I did:
I checked the cabling and power and everything was ok inside. It still didn't boot.
I then tried switching the cable and it still didn't work.
Then I tried to use the windows XP cd to reinstall windows and it says a hard drive wasn't detected.
So I booted from Knoppix and it didn't detect the hard drive either.
I am thinking the hard-drive is bad.
I then checked the BIOS and it detected the hard-drive as the primary master IDE.
The boot order however does not allow me to select a hard-drive to boot.
I tried to clear the BIOS settings and it didn't help.
I tried the suspected bad hard-drive in other computers and it makes the other computers not boot either.
I tried a working hard-drive with windows xp on it in the problem machine, I went into the BIOS and I now could select in the boot order the hard drive, then when I try to let it run and it says there was an error starting windows and gives me the options of starting normally, safe mode, etc.. and no matter which option i choose, it restarts the computer within 2 seconds.
I think the hard-drive is bad but why won't the computer boot to the other working hard-drive. I have checked online and there are a lot of people with similiar problems but not specifically like mine. If anyone could please help I would really appreciate it. Thank you. -John
I checked the cabling and power and everything was ok inside. It still didn't boot.
I then tried switching the cable and it still didn't work.
Then I tried to use the windows XP cd to reinstall windows and it says a hard drive wasn't detected.
So I booted from Knoppix and it didn't detect the hard drive either.
I am thinking the hard-drive is bad.
I then checked the BIOS and it detected the hard-drive as the primary master IDE.
The boot order however does not allow me to select a hard-drive to boot.
I tried to clear the BIOS settings and it didn't help.
I tried the suspected bad hard-drive in other computers and it makes the other computers not boot either.
I tried a working hard-drive with windows xp on it in the problem machine, I went into the BIOS and I now could select in the boot order the hard drive, then when I try to let it run and it says there was an error starting windows and gives me the options of starting normally, safe mode, etc.. and no matter which option i choose, it restarts the computer within 2 seconds.
I think the hard-drive is bad but why won't the computer boot to the other working hard-drive. I have checked online and there are a lot of people with similiar problems but not specifically like mine. If anyone could please help I would really appreciate it. Thank you. -John