[menhel]

My computer was working perfectly well.
I left it on and went out. When I came back it had a black screen saying
"boot disk error, insert system disk and press enter" in BIOS
This has happened before but I just hit my pc then rebooted then no problem.
This time it didnt work, I have tried to vacuum the interior of my pc but to no avail.

Can anyone help me please?

[NICK G]

Originally Posted by menhel

My computer was working perfectly well.
I left it on and went out. When I came back it had a black screen saying
"boot disk error, insert system disk and press enter" in BIOS
This has happened before but I just hit my pc then rebooted then no problem.
This time it didnt work, I have tried to vacuum the interior of my pc but to no avail.
Can anyone help me please?

Do you mean you slapped it up side of the head and it then booted OK?
If yes, then you may have a loose connection. Reseat all boards and connectors.
Do all the simple things first. Good luck.

[Elvandil]

It's hard to give advice when we know nothing about your machine. Make/model, operating system, what you have tried, what recovery media you have available, and so on would be a good start.

[brillser]

Yup!

[menhel]

thanks for your replies
I hit it just like you said.
I have checked the power supply connector of the sata drive, also the data cable. I've also tried using different cables.
What else could I check?


My machine is this:
300GB Maxtor Raptor Drive
Abit AW8 Motherboard
2GB Memory
Geforce 8600GX
500GB External Seagate Hdd
Pentium D 2.6Ghz CPU

Thanks for your help.

[menhel]

Anyone have any ideas, please?

[menhel]

new development, if I insert my XP installation CD no error comes up and XP boots normally.

When I remove the CD I'm back to square one.

This made me think that the system is being booted by files from the CD as the ones on my hard drive are probably corrupt.

How can I copy the boot files over to the hard drive if what I have written above is logical.

If it's illogical, has what I have written sprung any new ideas from you?

Thanks again.

[NICK G]

new development, if I insert my XP installation CD no error comes up and XP boots normally.

I don't understand this. You put an install cd in and your system boots up to a normal
windows rather than actually booting the cd?
No, the system is not being booted by taking files from the cd.
The install cd is booted or your system is booted and not a combination of both.
You have something intermittent going on there.
Check the boot order in your bios.

[menhel]

the boot order is cd first then hard drive

without the cd disk, the error appears

with the cd disk, it asks if i want to boot cd, i dont do anything so it ignores the cd, and loads windows normally.

Can windows be trying to take boot files from cd and use them to boot windows?

[SoltoN]

try going into the bios and changing the boot order to HDD then CD, keep hammering on delete when you first boot the machine to get into the bios.