Disk Boot Failure

Status
Not open for further replies.

Infinite

Baseband Member
Messages
49
Well... I obviously made a big mistake somewhere. Here's how it happened:

I built a new computer for a relative, and wanted to keep their old hard drive (IDE), and give them a new one also (Sata).

I proceeded and installed windows XP pro on the new harddrive (partition D: ). This led me to have a dual boot menu - one for xp one for home (from the old drive). So I booted into the XP pro and transferred over all the required files from the old harddrive.

Then I must have made a huge mistake; I put in the windows XP cd, went and deleted the partition that had windows xp home on it (the C: drive). Rebooted and:

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

So I went into BIOS and made sure the harddrive was first to boot from. I also made sure that the win XP harddrive was set first in the harddrive priority section.

But still nothing.

I even unplugged the old hd, and then the cd rom drive, and still get that disk failure message.

Did I screw up bad? I know the data is still there on the harddrive but I don't know what to do, I don't have a backup of what's on it.

System specs:

Gigabyte S3H 690G mobo
WD 2500KS 250 gb hd (sata)
WD 80 gb hd (ide)
athlon x2 4200+
and ram

Help!
 
your boot ini was save in the c drive. you should set the new drive as c and master and the old drive as d and slave. then copy your data over

since this is a new system follow the steps above as it isn't advisable to have xp as a d drive
 
your boot ini was save in the c drive. you should set the new drive as c and master and the old drive as d and slave. then copy your data over

How do I do that?

If it means anything... the IDE (old) drive was set to the master on channel 0

The sata was master on channel 2
the dvd drive was slave on channel 2

PS: Is the data on the deleted partition still intact?
 
How do I do that?

If it means anything... the IDE (old) drive was set to the master on channel 0

The sata was master on channel 2
the dvd drive was slave on channel 2

PS: Is the data on the deleted partition still intact?

set it to boot from sata first in the bios. then copy the old files back to the original hdd
 
Sorry, I still can't get it to work. And your advice doesn't make a whole pile of sense.

I looked for an option to boot from an sata first in the bios, but there was none.

Plus I don't know how I'm supposed to copy the old files to the new HD if I deleted the old partition.

In the windows XP setup it says this:

Partition1 (d: ) 250 gb (new hd)
Unpartitioned space 8 mb

Unpartitioned space 80 gb (old hd)

So if my boot.ini was saved on the C: drive (which I deleted), how can I get it to boot from the D: drive which has a fresh windows xp install on it?

Edit: Okay I now see that in the windows setup it is recognizing the new drive as the C: drive.
 
Okay, I just tried following those steps. It detects the windows on drive C: (the new harddrive with xp pro). Typing bootcfg /list shows no boot entries. When I use bootcfg /rebuild it shows this (bold is what I typed):

Total Identified Windows Installs: 1

[1] C:\Windows
Add installation to boot list? (Yes/No/All): Y
Enter Load Identifier: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Enter Operating System Load Options: /fastdetect

Error: Failed to add the selected boot entry to the boot list.


Edit: Okay, I restarted and managed to add the entry to the boot.ini, and it still gives me the same disk failure message. Should I try running to fixboot command, and if I do could I possibly lose information on that partition?
 
Sorry, I still can't get it to work. And your advice doesn't make a whole pile of sense.

I looked for an option to boot from an sata first in the bios, but there was none.

Plus I don't know how I'm supposed to copy the old files to the new HD if I deleted the old partition.

In the windows XP setup it says this:

Partition1 (d: ) 250 gb (new hd)
Unpartitioned space 8 mb

Unpartitioned space 80 gb (old hd)

So if my boot.ini was saved on the C: drive (which I deleted), how can I get it to boot from the D: drive which has a fresh windows xp install on it?

Edit: Okay I now see that in the windows setup it is recognizing the new drive as the C: drive.

if you could have ask nicer, I could have walk you down the path. but since I don't make a bit of sense, you won't get any more help from me.

you would have been up and running yesterday if you had ask me what did I mean. I have a tendency to give short simple answers because my typing sucks. if somebody doesn't understand them I will give a better explanation. I know exactly why it's giving you the error. I had you bypassing this method for this reason.
 
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.

But you said to set it to boot from the sata first in the bios, and there was no option to do so.

There was an option to set hard disk boot priority, but I had already put the new harddrive at the top of the list. The new hard drive is also set as a master on channel 2, and the old hard drive I have tried to (a) unplug, and (b) set as a slave on channel 0. Both did not work. And you didn't leave any additional instructions to follow. Both times you said for me to copy the files from my old harddrive over after following your first steps, but since the old harddrives partition doesnt exist anymore, I dont see how I can do that.
 
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.

But you said to set it to boot from the sata first in the bios, and there was no option to do so.

There was an option to set hard disk boot priority, and the new harddrive was already at the top of the list. The new hard drive is a master on channel 2, the old hard drive I have tried to (a) unplug, and (b) set as a slave on channel 0. Both did not work. And you didn't leave any additional instructions to follow.

that's the option. we are grown men here and I don't hold hold hands (you have to figure that out as each bios is different).

when you originally started. the ide hdd was obviously set to boot first. it obviously change when you took it out.

you can't fix that mbr (you can but I won't tell you how as it doesn't make any sense to do it that way). you are try to fix a C windows that's really a d windows. it won't work. it's not mapped right
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom