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Good morning,
Last night around 1:15 I came back into the computer room to find my computer had rebooted itself while I was watching a movie. On the screen was a failed boot with the System Disk failure, please insert disk press enter etc. message.
I had to go to work this morning and have not had a chance to really poke around, but I was wondering if anyone knew any free utilities which are known to easily fix these sort of issues. My main hdd is a 120GB seagate ultra ata using a sata convert. Mobo is an Abit IC7.
The seagate drive and my backup maxtor are recognized in BIOS, then the message comes up on the next screen. Only new program I've installed in the last 2 weeks is winamp. Windows updater has been pestering me with messages the last 3-4 days but I hadn't updated anything.
Have had absolutely no problems in the 2 months since I put the computer together, then all of a sudden early this morning I have nothing but black.
When I get home, should I run chkdsk first, or what should my plan of attack be?
Thanks.
Hi John,
Its hard for me to give you ideas what your plan of attack should be. Could you please provide the missing info...What exactly did the screen tell you. You only provided us with "On the screen was a failed boot with the System Disk failure, please insert disk press enter etc. message." For us, the "etc." holds valuable info for anyone to troubleshoot.
i_XpUser
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Hello,
Thanks for the response. There was actually little else on the screen. It would proceed to boot as normal, run the IDE check, and then
Boot disk failure. Insert system disk and press enter.
I do have my XP Pro CD still and inserted it, which took me into setup/recovery mode. I partitioned my 120 Seagate into C:\ (20GB) and D:\ (100GB) windows obviously is on the 20. The recovery console, or whatever its called, took me to D:\WINDOWS
Only thing I did after that point was type help and dir, after that I shut down and decided to find someone who actually had experience with such problems.
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I need to clarify myself. Was there any error message aside from what you already reported to us? If they were, its important for us to know. If not, then ...
i_XpUser
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No, there were no other messages beyond the stated. One might have appeared while I was afk but I have no idea. As far as I know, the computer had been running approx 12 hours, rebooted itself, and got stuck at the prompt I returned to.
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No message at all usually indicate the problem could be hardware-related..RAM, PS, etc. The answer to your problem may be this ...the computer had been running approx 12 hours, rebooted itself, and got stuck at the prompt...
All the PCs here are running 24/7. If one workstation reboot like that, the first thing I'd do is check the hardware.
i_XpUser
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The strongest indicator of your problem is the HD since it asked you to insert a System disk.
i_XpUser
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So should I tear it open, make sure everything is still connected tight, then proceed into trying to run chkdsk or fdisk or whatever?
I'm almost positive bios still recognizes the drive, but I might have been seeing things early this morning. I believe Seagate provided me with a resource CD of some sort, would that actually be helpful to use or is it most likely full of garbage?
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Your first step is download the drive manufacturers diagnostics and run them. Test the drive and see if its good.
Sounds like you might have lost your c: partition. First step is boot the XP cd and go into recovery console. Use the utilities fixmbr and fixboot. Exit and reboot.
You can as a final resort start the XP install and choose repair. This will refresh the system files while keeping your installed apps and data where they are.
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Using the install/repair you will lose all the xp updates, including SP1 unless you have a slipstream cd. Be sure the firewall and A/V are active before going on the net as you will be susceptible to the sasser and msblaster worms.
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Could it the the NTLDR error that is troubling him? Sure sounds like it.
I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid...
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Should have read> Could it be the NTLDR error troubling him?
I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid...
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Hi there,
I spent awhile doing most everything listed here. Here's what happened:
Ran Seagates diagnostic tools. Then chkdsk, fixboot, and fixmbr. Still didnt work. The drive was still functioning, recognized in BIOS and everything so the tech friend I was talking with had me do another install of windows. Before I get into that, here is my setup before the crash:
C:\ 20 GB Seagate partition (along with D) ONLY has windows
D:\ 100 GB Seagate partition (along with C) all my programs
E:\ 160 GB Maxtor SATA HDD storage onlyNow, sometime after the crash, recovery console started taking me to D:\WINDOWS
I installed windows again to D:\WINDOWS2, because all my drive names have changed.
C, D, E have become D, E, C in that order. Diskmgmt.msc will not allow me to change either D or C. C does not have windows, and D was previously C.
Both are masters and jumpered correctly.
Windows now loads properly to the Windows2 install, however everything is all switched around and nothing really works, I can get to the desktop but of course all my settings, start menu, quicklaunch bar, drivers, programs etc are not really working.
And I can't get the net to work.
Anything thats where I'm at now.
I appreciate all the help so far. Frustration central.
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