Hi everyone. I am having a very strange problem. I have just built myself a new computer, with which i bought a new hitachi sata2 hdd. I installed windows xp, all my drivers and had it working perfectly, until i reset my bios. After that now i get 'DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER'. Now, i have the BIOS set up exactly how it should be, to boot from that disk but it won't fire. The VERY strange part is that if i insert the windows xp disc and set boot priority as CDROM then HDD, let it find the CD but don't boot from the CD, it then looks for a boot partition on the HDD and it fires up first time. So basically to boot into windows i need to have the windows cd in.... WEIRD! Can anyone please tell me what the problem is? i have tried everything in my knowlage. I'm not new to PC's but i've never had this problem before.

Run FIXBOOT AND FIXMBR from the recovery console.

Thanks, i have tried those commands in the recovery console but it still won't fire. I have formatted and re-installed windows but still nothing. Do you think it might be a hard drive fault? It was booting fine from that drive but now it won't.

Hi, Sounds like your boot disk is not a boot disk. Boot with your CD and see if Command.Com is present in the root of the drive you are haveing trouble with. Command.com is visible. Also two hidden files should be there, MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS. XP CD really should have done it right. Good Luck, Jim

XP does not use Msdos.sys ,Io.sys nor command. com. "new hitachi sata2 hdd" see if there is a jumper to limit it to sata1, is so try it.

I'm a little confused. I had to download a hitachi programme to enable sata2. Is that the reason it's not working, because i have changed it to sata2?

I can not say, do not use sata hdd's. I did read a post latley where they had to limit hdd to sata1. The problem was different but. http://www.computing.net/hardware/wwwboard/forum/43090.html I would think if it was the problem it would not boot via the CD. from post #2 "Thanks, i have tried those commands in the recovery console but it still won't fire" did fixboot/fixmbr give any error message when you ran them ? When you boot via the CD, check on root of C: if the needed hidden boot files are present. Go into Disk Management and see if it lists the C: as an active primary drive. Due to the system working befor BIOS reset, would look for a setup error in the BIOS. Is the sata dirve listed as a boot device ? If the mobod supports both IDE and Sata be double sure the IDE hdd is not the one listed.