Disk boot failure

Hello All,

Please correct me if I have posted in the wrong forum.

I turned on my monitor to my desk computer and was greeted with a black screen saying, "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER _"

I personally have no idea what to do. I pressed Ctrl-Alt-Delete and the COMPAQ Intel screen comes up with 4 options.

<F10=Setup>
<Esc=Boot Menu>
<F11=System Recovery>
<F9=Diagnostics>

Could someone please assist me?

Thanks in advance,
Global:cry

 

Essentially, it is saying it does not see an operating system on your HD/harddrive or is not seeing your HD at all.

Try hitting Esc and seeing which devices is lists as boot options. If HD is listed then choose that and see if you get a different message.

 

I went into Boot Menu

==Select a Boot First device==

>Hard Drive Group
- Ch1 S. :ST31000524AS
>CD-ROM Group
- Ch0 S. :TTSTcorp CDDVDW TS-H653N


Hard Drive Group was highlighted. I hit "Enter:Accept"

The screen went black and "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER _" popped up again.

 

Just ran the Diagnostic Tools

CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2160 @ 1.80GHz - PASSED

Memory: Memory (4096MB) - PASSED

Drive: TTSTcorp CDDVDW TS-H653N - PASSED

Drive: :ST31000524AS - PASSED

Testing : Boot Path
Error Code: BIOHD-3
Warning: No bootable drives detected
Suggestionlease Contact HP Support
Press any key to reboot

 

Do you only have one HD installed?
It seems to be seeing your HD but not finding an operating system.
Which OS are you running?

 

I have 2 Hard Drives.

I installed a second internal HD about a year ago to back up our family photos.

I also reseeded the cables on the HD's to see if that was the problem. Still no luck.

 

Sorry, i forgot to add that I'm running MS Vista

 

It seems that one of your HD the, boot one, isn't being seen at all.
The diagnostic only tested one HD a Seagate one which is probably your backup drive.

You could check by hitting F10 and under something like System it should list your devices. The STxxx HD and the TTST DVDROM and you are looking for a third device which would be your boot HD. If it only shows the two then there is a major problem with the HD (not just Vista).

If you don't see the HD then I would recommend shutting down and unplugging the PC to let it completely cool down. Try booting in several hours and see if the drive is recognized. If it is then you have a chance to copy the contents to a new HD. My diagnosis would be a failing HD.

Now, that said you could try F11 and see if you get the same message or a different error message. The recovery options would also be on the same problem HD so if the HD is not being recognized you should get some error. If recovery options come up then you can just exit out of them, and we can rethink the problem.

 

Hi Global, are you using a Laptop or Desktop? The SATA Cables are perfectly fine? The HD is fine? Are you using 220 volts or 110volts?

 

Hello Sach2,

I shut the computer down overnight and turned it back on and got the same screen.

I hit F10 and went into Phoenix - AwardBios.

Under Main it listed the drives.

1st Drive [None]
2nd Drive [TSSTcorp.....]
3rd Drive [None]
4th Drive [ST31.......]

I ran another diagnostic test and received the same error code: BIOHD-3.

I will shut down the computer again and unplug it this time as I didn't do that last night.



Charlieken80, It is a desktop and our home is 110V.

 

Hello Sach2,

I plugged the computer back in and started it up and had the computer do the same thing as I described earlier.

Any other suggestions? Have I completely lost all the information on my hard drive? I certainly hope not.

Thanks,
Global

 

Is the Seagate Barracuda your data drive? That's the only one the computer sees.

 

Hello Plodr,

The Seagate Barracuda was installed about a year ago as a backup for my photos.

Looking back, I should have used it to back up everything.

Global

 

Hi,

That it isn't showing up in BIOS is bad. That means no software can even see it either.
You should probably verify that the SATA cables are snug to both motherboard and the HD as charlieken80 suggested. Just open the machine and give the (usually red) SATA cables a good push to make sure they are firmly seated.

Other than that I don't know what else to tell you. You could try the HD in another machine to see if it is detected. Or get something like this to attempt to connect the HD by USB to see if it is recognized.

You have already tried letting it cool down by unplugging it and it is still not recognized. Spotty recognition is usually the way dying HD behave. It is possible it just gave up without that symptom. If it is truly dead then neither internal or USB connection will be possible. You could also try just rebooting say 30 times in a row to see if you get lucky once and it is recognized. It has worked for me before. If it is recognized then don't turn off the computer and perhaps there will be a way to back things up.