This has been driving me crazy for the past 9 hours. It all started by me trying to put a new cd/dvd reader/writer drive. I am 99% positive that the new drive has nothing to do with this problem however. Along with installing the new drive, I replaced the flat IDE cables that came with the computer with the newer type of cables that are in stores these days, the round ones that are supposed to "conserve space" When I started up the computer I got a black screen with this message: Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter I realize i'm not the first person with this problem as I have been researching online for the past hour, however I have tried everything, unhooking everything from the motherboard plugging it back in, changing boot priority settings in bios, swapping hard drives, completely taking out all the drives or each drive once at a time. I created a startup disk and put it in there when the error message comes up and press enter, and then the floppy disk drive makes some noise and gives me this message: Starting... A:\> A:\> and nothing happens after that. The only thing that is of concern to me is that I think when I first started up the comp after installing the new cd/dvd drie, the cable connecting the motherboard to the floppy disk drive was not all the way in the motherboard, i goofed. I hope something can be done, cause the computer isn't even mine, it belongs to a girl that i'm trying to talk to which makes matters worse. Paaaaalease help me, any advice suggestions expertise is greatly appreciated, hell i appreciate anyone who read this far down.
by the way, the comp is running xp home edition has 80 gb western digital hard drive, 256 mb's of ram, its a compaq presario S5100NX. No added sound or video cards. two cd/dvd drives connected. bout 3 years old, but has been very well maintained so i doubt age could play that much of a factor, problem initially began a with the computer for the first time ever a week ago when the cd drive wouldn't burn anymore and sometimes wouldn't even recognize discs at all. the other dvd drive worked perfectly though. so after looking at everything (taking out ied cables, switching from slave to master) i told the owner that it was either a bad ied cable or bad drive, so she got the new cables i mentioned above and the new cd/dvd drive.
Well, after reading all that, I still didn't get 'what' drive was giving you that error as any drive can....especially floppy drives, or hard drives that have partition damage. Here's what you can try. Clear the system BIOS, and remove all the drives from the system being very careful about static electricity. You may not think it's on you, but even the smallest, unnoticable amount can fry a drive. Put in a CD/DVD drive and set the BIOS to boot from it. Place in an XP CD and see if the system boots. If it does, leave the drive there...you know that one is working. Next, place your hard drive in on the primary IDE channel (make sure you didn't bend any pins on the drive or motherboard sockets), set as Master. Leave the system set to boot from the CD drive...run setup, and see if it detects the drive. (by all means, leave the floppy out of the equation, they literally are a piece of crap) If it does, and you have not done anything to the hard drive, reboot the computer and see if it starts up. If you then get that same error, your partition on the HD has been corrupted.
reseat all the connections inside your pc to make sure nothings been nocked loose, this can sometimes happen and prevent your system from picking up the hard drive also make sure that this new drive youve installed is set correctly, if its on the same IDE cable as your hard drive make sure you set the new drive jumpers to be slave as they come default set to master this can also prevent the system picking up the hard drive
if it helps to see what i'm dealing with, thanks morph, i'll try that http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/photos/photo08/5b/57/29e31bdfe626.jpg?_rh=5y5sed3gszyxjzf2f6kwerdac http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/photos/photo05/5c/be/7aa83e423aed.jpg?_rh=6r5otokjcgskpb0p3ev66atv2 http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/photos/photo01/f2/62/575ca47dbf22.jpg?_rh=da5e89qb6nzn50bl2n9e9k4uq http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/photos/photo05/ec/83/5e20bdee9a08.jpg?_rh=2dux7sp3l2bpxif7u192njtus http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/photos/photo02/9e/e6/186ac0ab0c4b.jpg?_rh=31mw5syq2l8r7rphjm0dn05zf http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/photos/photo06/36/d4/40b21b75dd20.jpg?_rh=6foi06jhaj3vd5quewbzocr69 http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/photos/photo02/99/e3/6f453e980ff6.jpg?_rh=e6nw2s6lte0p02xwo3whfb0ro
good news, i unhooked everything from power and motherboard except for the hard drive and windows loaded up fine, i did a whole song air guitar in my living room i was so happy, so now i'm going to hook the floppy and cd/dvd drives up one by one to see where the bad apple is at, i'm happy as ever right now, the sun came up and everything when it worked, lol.
check the jumper settings on your cd drive, thats probably what caused the problem in the first place
problem solved guys, thanks for your help, turned out it was the damn cable i was using for the master and slave cd/dvd drives, i switched back to a flat one and it worked fine, prolly cause those new cables didn't work well with the compaq, considering its 3 years old
