Disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter

[Bman]

I've reviewed all related threads on the following issue: Disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter....without finding an answer to fit my situation.

 

I've XP Pro with mirrored drives. Too often we have power problems in our apartment and blow the circuit breaker. I just reset the bios and all is well. Being tired of the problem I ordered a APC BR1500 battery backup. Yesterday morning the circuit breaker pops and the power for the PC, etc, are turned off. Resetting the power I left the computer off. Within the hour Fedex arrives with the battery backup. I'm hoping that this isn't a too little too late issue. But to my dismay resetting the bios didn't work this time and the "Disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter" message appeared. Uh oh. This is a first. I go to the bios and change the settings to try each of the harddrives and it doesn't work...same message. Of course the original setting is the only way for the mirrored image notification to appear. I go to the mirrored image settings and this time the mirror image isn't recognized between the two drives and it can't be fixed. It does allow the mirrored set to be deleted. I ultimately delete the mirrored set and retried booting from each drive. No go. Same message. I mirrored for the reason of not losing data....hoping this is reversable. :eek:

[Goku]

Hello and Welcome to FPCH Bman. :)

 

The power surge seems to have corrupted your Operating System. Do you have your Windows XP installation disc?

 

-- Goku

[Bman]

Thanks for the welcome. Yes, I do have the installation disks.

[Goku]

OK, then you are good to go.

 

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install

 

Let us know if it helps or not. Good Luck.

 

-- Goku

[Bman]

So I haven't necessarily lost my data?

[Goku]

So I haven't necessarily lost my data?

No, there is a very high chance that your data is safe.

 

-- Goku

[Dalo Harkin]

The whole point of running a mirrored set-up is that if one dies then you have an EXACT copy on the other drive.

Mirrored setups are normally on a separate part of the MOBO - they are normally a different colour and they utilise the onboard RAID.

Unplug both drives and insert one of them into the other SATA ports if there are any - and then enter the BIOS and you will have to move that disk to the main boot priority on the list and set the system to boot from HDD -

come back and let us know - if it doesn't work with one of the drives try the other before coming back.

[Bman]

I agree with you Harkin, hence the reason I mirrored. Sadly the mirror appears to have been too good. I did swap with the same result. I am not inclined to do a repair yet as Goku suggests as fear permeates my being about losing my data located on the drive, some in the same partition and most in a different partition. I don't trust microsoft repairs......should I?

 

I have pulled the primary drive off and attached it to my XP64 computer and it does recognize the drive and WD Diagnostics finds it functioning but as expected it finds no files. Someone at the office suggested replacing the following files on the disk but if I can't access it I'm not sure how I can replace the files:

 

Ntldr(corruption)

Ntdetect.com, boot.ini, bootsect.dos (for dual booting)(corruption)

Ntbootdd.sys(corruption)

Ntoskrnl.exe(corruption)

 

Does this make sense? Thoughts?:confused:

[Goku]

Repair installs are safe and do not generally cause any harm unless the drive is weak and deteriorating. If you fear, that the drive may not be able to handle stressful operations, then refrain from doing a repair as it will make things worse. However, if the drive is in good working condition, then it is quite commendable to perform the repair installation. For one, it is assured that the repair install won't damage any of your data.

 

Also, what do you mean by the second part of your post. I couldn't quite understand it.

 

-- Goku

[Bman]

I pulled the primary drive from the computer and attached it to my other computer to see what it would see. The computer recognizes the drive itself and determines it is healthy but it doesn't any content as the boot data and partition data is apparently corrupted.

[Tootech]

Hi Bman,

 

As Goku suggests, the best policy is to attempt a repair install. Put your disks back in the original configuration as a mirrored set, and run the install CD. If an exisitng Windows installation is recognised, you will be able to repair it.

 

A repair does not delete your data or programs - it will reinstall only your operating system files. Sometimes an odd prgram will need reactivation, but that is all.

 

If no Windows installation is recognised, and the repair option is not available, then shutdown the PC - don't go any further at the moment.

 

Bearing in mind the checks you have done on the disks since the crash, then I think your only other option would be run a live CD, such as BART, or Knoppix to have a look at the mirrored disk file structure whilst it up and running in your machine.

[Seth]

I agree with you Harkin, hence the reason I mirrored. Sadly the mirror appears to have been too good. I did swap with the same result. I am not inclined to do a repair yet as Goku suggests as fear permeates my being about losing my data located on the drive, some in the same partition and most in a different partition. I don't trust microsoft repairs......should I?

 

I have pulled the primary drive off and attached it to my XP64 computer and it does recognize the drive and WD Diagnostics finds it functioning but as expected it finds no files. Someone at the office suggested replacing the following files on the disk but if I can't access it I'm not sure how I can replace the files:

 

Ntldr(corruption)

Ntdetect.com, boot.ini, bootsect.dos (for dual booting)(corruption)

Ntbootdd.sys(corruption)

Ntoskrnl.exe(corruption)

 

Does this make sense? Thoughts?:confused:

 

Those are the NT loader files. If those were the problem, you would receive an "Operating System Not Found" error, and not a "Boot Disk Failure" error.

 

Given that the drive is detected on the other computer, I'm inclined to think you have a mobo problem. Does the drive show up in the bios? When you slave the drive on the other computer, can you see the files when you explore the drive?

[Bman]

Tootech, you and Goku are talking about a repair and not a restore. Okay, I get it. Will try later today. I've got guts for that.

 

Seth, I agree with that my mobo may be fried. I have to reboot twice in a row everytime right now to get it up and it seems that I also have to reset my bios every third boot. Again, all this since my most recent problem. Both my computers acknowledge the drive but no files are observable. By the way, my drives are WD SATA. I'm not sure how to make a SATA drive a slave drive. Anything else I should try before repairing one drive?

[Seth]

The mobo on the other computer would have to have a Sata connection in order to slave the drive.

 

BTW-I would trust WD diagnostics in showing no files on the drive.

 

Go ahead and try the repair install. Note that if the cd does not find a Window's installation to repair, then don't proceed.

 

Good luck, but I don't think a repair will help as it seems like a mobo issue.

[Tootech]

Bman, the reasoning behind the repair attempt was to get the system back to it's original build, and see if

 

1) The mirror array is seen in the BIOS

 

2) The array is recognised as having an OS installed - a repair will only proceed if an OS is found.

 

BTW - did you run the WD diag's on the original computer, on both drives?

 

Sorry for any confusion :)

[Bman]

Tootech and Seth, no I didn't run WD diagnostics on my primary computer as it wouldn't boot up. What should I have done? The mirror array bootup notification indicated a problem based on my initial post. Going into the mirror array bootup software I was able to determine that the mirror no longer existed and wasn't recognized. Twice before I was able to rebuild the mirror when it had corrupted but this time while the software recognized the set it didn't allow the option to rebuild as it said it didn't exist (yet it must have to have recognized a problem). I tried to boot from both drives independently. Neither worked. Ultimately, the mirror software did allow me to delete the set and I didn't create a new one. I will try to repair windows n a few hours if there are no other responses. I suspect though that I'll find my mobo and memory shot. I did try earlier to boot via CD Active Boot disk for windows and for dos but it wouldn't finish loading in memory before crashing. But when the computer starts up the memory checks out fine. :(

[Bman]

Ok, feeling squeemish about doing a repair without pulling off my data first I tried Knoppix as suggested to pull off the data. No luck. So then I actually paid for DiskInternals NTFS Recovery and after a few tries was able to successfully copy all my data files to another harddrive. It was worth the money. I next moved the non-cooperative harddrive back to its computer and attempted to do a windows "repair" but while the bios saw the drives, Windows apparently did not as the following message was received after attempting a windows "repair": "The Path or File specified is not valid" and it went to an invalid c:\ prompt. Thoughts? :mad: :(

[Plastic Nev]

Thank goodness you retrieved your data, before we go any further make absolutely sure that you do have it safe and can retrieve it as and when you need it.

If happy then the next thing is to take one of the original drives and fully format it and reinstall windows onto it. This will hopefully show the drive itself is OK and only the original OS damaged. Let us know how that goes before we go any further.

[Bman]

Plastic Nev, Yes the data is secured on a different hard drive on a different computer. Also, the drives are fine according to Western Digital diagnostics. Sad to have to redo windows entirely. Before reinstallation of windows on sound harddrives, I'm concerned that the motherboard is on its last leg. It seems to have been affected by the current problem. The memory though checks out fine. Perhaps the issue is with the bios but I don't think so. It seems that the bios doesn't recognize parts of the computer on an initial boot but does on the reboot. Thoughts on this? I hate to reinstall and then have to do this all over with a new motherboard. :confused:

[Plastic Nev]

I see your concern, and it may well be true. Remember though that the BIOS was trying to work via a corrupt OS and so may have been confused by that. However, I am not sure about that, so hang on a bit longer until Tootech or Seth can see where you are at now.

No harm in trying the reformat and reinstall though, even if the MoBo is beggared and needs a new one, it won't matter if you can replace like for like. It will only be a problem if you have to buy a different type of MoBo, and a simple repair is all you need to get round that.

[Tootech]

Hi Bman,

 

It sounds like your power outage did totally trash Windows on both drives.. If no files were viewable on either drive, a repair installl just wouldn't happen.

 

Good news that you have your data safe and stored away.

 

Where to go now....The diag tool says your drives are ok, you have your data safe - can you explain a little more about booting and BIOS not recognizing some parts, then on reboot it does.

 

If there is something wrong with the board, it may not be noticeable until Windows is installed and up and running., so you would have done the install work for nothing.

 

The only thing you could do would be to update the BIOS to the latest version, even if it the same as installed now, just to rule out BIOS corruption.

 

Personally if the board was mine and I 'd had the problems you have had, I would replace it - power outages, boot problems, devices missing - it's not worth the hassle.