Windows Xp: Disk boot failure :Urgent Help Required

[Calexico]

Hello Everyone

I am having a problem booting off my hard drive. During startup it goes through the whole process until this message appears.

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

When I insert the XP disc the system boots. However I do not want to have to keep inserting the system disc anytime I want to boot the system.

This is what I have done so far.

Wiped the drives
Re-partitioned them
Installed Xp

When I restart the machine it will not boot from the hard drive .

I have checked the following

The device is working properly
In the BIOS it is the primary boot device.


I have no more ideas ...

Usefull Suggestions .... Anybody


Calexico

 

[peterdiva]

Are you saving when exiting the bios,seems to be a common problem.

 

[Calexico]

thanks for responding

I have definitely saved when exiting the bios .... i thought this may have been the problem myself but no ..... any other ideas

 

[iss]

Do you have a floppy drive in your machine? and if so is there a floppy in it? you will also get that message if there is a floppy disk in the floppy drive during boot if it isnt a bootable floppy.

 

[Calexico]

There is no floppy drive. I have re-prartioned themdisk and re - installed the OS. still no joy ...... really frustrating ....

 

[iss]

how many drives do you have installed? what I would do is disconnect all but the one I want to install windows on. you can connect the others once you have windows installed.

 

[peterdiva]

Have you installed windows on the right partition on drive C.

 

[Calexico]

yes. The OS is definitely on C:

 

[Calexico]

I have two drives installed. Iam going to take the advice of ISS and physically remove one of the disks. After I have re-installed the OS I will re-install the extra hard drive. I will let you know how I get on.

 

[Calexico]

Thanks

Problem solved. I removed both hard drives. I then re-installed only one. Re-partioned this drive and re-installed XP. I then restarted the computer and hey presto XP launched from the hard drive. After I was sure everything was working OK I then re-installed the second drive. So everything now works. Thanks for taking the time to reply to my problem.

 

[iss]

Glad we could help. and Welcome to TechSpot!