Computer Will Not Boot Up. Boot Failure:System Halted (Solution Here Did Not Work)

[ccualumni]

I am having trouble getting a computer to boot. The computer I am having trouble with (it is my father in law's in TN, and I am in GA), is a Gateway. I found some information on fixing the problem on a Dell (I assume the bios is the same for both brands as it seems to be), but I cannot figure out how to get it to work.

The directions:

Reboot your system and hit F2 as soon as you see the Dell startup screen (the options are F2 for setup, F12 for boot sequence).

In the System Setup screen, do these steps.

Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

Your system proabaly came set to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" - THIS SETTING CAUSES YOUR SYSTEM TO GO INTO AN IDE LOOP AND DOESN'T ALLOW IT TO FIND YOUR FACTORY INSTALLED SATA DRIVE.

CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION"

Reboot - make sure that the boot sequence is set to CD rom before HD and make sure that the reinstall CD is in the drive. Setup will load, hit enter to reinstall XP. Your HD should now be detected and you should see the licensing agreement.

If you have your files backed up I reccommend deleting the partition and reformatting prior to installing XP, it will give you that option after the license agreement.

Once you have successfully reinstalled the OS, Dell reccommends that you change the SATA Operation setting back to RAID AUTODETECT / AHCI (or back to whatever your factory setting was) to avoid any problems with other IDE devices installed on your system.

The problem is this step:
[bold]Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"[/bold]
I can find the Diskette drive in the bios and it does not give me any option other than turning it on or off. I cannot even find anything that says "Drive 0, SATS-0".
I figured out that I have an IDE and not a SATA hard drive. I am still a bit confused with the rest though.

So I cannot get past one of the first steps.

I went into the bios on my Dell, and have my FIL in his bios on the Gateway (I am not there so I cannot see what he is doing).

The computer is a Gateway with Windows XP, MOdel 700X. The hard drive is IDE and not SATA (at least as far as we can tell.

I also tried to do it on my Dell at my house (The Gateway is at my in-law's house), so I wanted a reference point as I worked with him.

He has had this computer for about 3 years, and it had a similar problem about a year ago. He turned the computer off and back on and the problem went away then.

The problem originated when he tried to boot his computer up today, and he was given the message:
"INtel Boot agent version.....
Exiting Boot Agent
Boot Failure: SYstem Halted"

I had my FIL check all of the cables and connectors, ran an XP repair CD (did not try to reinstall it yet), and has turnbed it off and on a few times.
When he ran the boot CD, it said that the hard drive could not be found.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Thanks

 

[Tmagic650]

Try clearing the Bios (CMOS) and see if the hard drive is detected in the bios. If it is, and you still get this boot failure. Your hard drive is probably bad

 

[Betageek48]

The first problem is that you are comparing apples to oranges(i.e, using Dell stuff to fix a Gateway). I would have recommended going into the BIOS, having it load the Default settings. Then, go to the boot order and make sure that your CD/DVD is set before the Hard Disk. Also, try it as if it were IDE then SATA. Once it is set that way, insert the CD in the drive and reboot.
Using the Default settings allows you to change on thing at a time. Boot order, Drive type, Drive controller, etc., al of these must be right before it will behave in the manner you need to reload/repair the system.

 

[Betageek48]

You can always use Dad's system model number to access his computer info on the Gateway site to help you help him with this problem. Sinc e we have no such info from you, we have no way to check on what his computer has/needs.

 

[Tmagic650]

We have the Gateway Model number, now all we need is the serial number from it, to be able to look it up on Gateway's site. I happen to be working on a POS Gateway tower circa 2000, Windows Me. Yikes! Even this has pretty decent info listed.

Try hitting F1, or F10, or DEL to get into the bios...