Disk Boot Failure Insert System Disk & Press Enter
Like many others who have written in, I am now getting the above message. I have had to replace too many hard drives over the years to the point that intuiatively when I got the above message, I felt it was either a virus or a software conflict with Panda Platinum that I am running. I am running Windows XP Professional and the first time this happened several days ago, when I ran the hard drive diagnostics, I was told that I had "no partitions" showing and asked if I wanted to FORMAT my hard drive? Hell no, I don't. Three partitions should have shown up ie. a C drive, a D drive, and an E drive for the one hard drive that I have. [I also have a separate A floppy drive and an F DVD writer/reader drive and a G CD writer/reader drive.]
My gut feeling that the hard drive diagnostic info was incorrect turned out to be correct after I ran the original copy of the Windows XP Pro disk with some manipulations (repair did not work and I did not want a fresh new windows format over existing drives and data I felt was still accessible). Some how I got back in and left the computer running for several days. The only change was running a complete scan of all drives with Panda. Panda reported no errors and the only obvious thing was that for the first time in several months, Yahoo was allowing me to do member searches from the Yahoo member directory when online and also from Yahoo messenger which I had been unable to access for several months -- thinking there was some problem with Yahoo or one or more of my paid Yahoo accounts. So, when a thunderstorm came up, I shut everything down again.
The next time I tried to power up, I got the same "Disk Boot Failure..." "Insert System Disk & Press Enter" message. Again, the repair on the original Windows XP Pro disk (which does not have SP1 and SP2 on it) did not work and after several tries and reboots, I was finally able to get back in with all three partitions and data intact like I had left it. This time I thought the problem might be a conflict with a public domain software called BHO Demon which I unistalled (but not completely as one has to do a manual install and sometimes I have been known to botch that part up). Feeling that the problem would re-occur, I tried to educated myself on how to create a Windows XP Boot Disk... I've messed around with that for a couple of days now which really pisses my wife off for all the time I'm having to spend on the computer. So, tonight when we went out for Thanksgiving supper, I powered down the computer the the "new" boot disk left in the CD drive.
Obviously I am no wizzard or even close to being a geek because when we got back home, the Boot disk does not work (I've done something wrong), and I still get the boot failure error and still feel the hard drive is good.... ie., the little light is not on that it is running when it shouldn't be, and there are no strange noises, etc.
My next strategy is to remove a program called Webroot Spy Sweeper in case there is a conflict with Panda or some other program. In the interim I have been to this forum and I have read several messages.
I don't live on a computer and have no desire to do so or to reformat a hard drive. I'd rather through the ***** out the window and buy a new one before doing that. But, before I go to that extreme, I will try a couple of pieces of information that I've picked up on this forum:
The next time I run REPAIR from the Windows XP disk and get the prompt, I will try the DOS command CHKDSK /F and see what happens. I will also try the commands DISKPART and the FIXBOOT and FIXMEMBER commands -- am not familar with those last two, but what the heck. Since the moderator of this forum have made some comments about the writer being "specific enough" with his or her complaint, I think I have been or else should get an award for being "long winded" as we say here in the South. If I've missed anything else that any of you might want to suggest as tried and try, just hop on, my gut tells me this is not going to be an easy problem to solve and I agree with you, I'd like to know what caused it in the first place. It seems that I'm not the "Lone Ranger" here and people have been getting this message for several years now.
Thanking you for you help in this important matter. ZZZZZzzz