Boot Failure - Insert System Disk.

[Fred Bloggs]

Thanks I'll look at those. The Ghost image certainly saved me probably 5 or 6 hours of rebuilding and updating several applications from scratch though. Luckily, the Ghost image I had was only about 5 days old when I needed it.

[wingnut]

Thanks, good thought but no. Fitted a new 320 Gb Western Digital hard drive yesterday. All's now well from using the Ghost image, thanks for all the comments. It's appreciated.

Glad to hear it. When in schtook I use the ultimate boot cd. Loads of good tools on there. Basically a Linux distro with password resetting tools, partition editors you name it.

SMART drives can give you information and there is utilities you can add that will warn you of any impeding issues.

When a disk fails like that I use Sprinrite by GRC.com Got me out of numerous scrapes

Drive Image for Linux is also a top piece of kit, but Ghost works well too.

Well done Fred.

[Fred Bloggs]

readyboost anywhere? I have an HP with a 4GB usb (could be a sd card) for readyboost. On certain bios settings it thinks the readyboost drive is bootable.

Thanks, good thought but no. Fitted a new 320 Gb Western Digital hard drive yesterday. All's now well from using the Ghost image, thanks for all the comments. It's appreciated.

[vetran]

readyboost anywhere? I have an HP with a 4GB usb (could be a sd card) for readyboost. On certain bios settings it thinks the readyboost drive is bootable.

[Fred Bloggs]

Within the BIOS - is the Harddisk interface (SATA) set to ACHI, compatable or ATA

Try setting to ATa or compatable - it just might be that your image does not have the ACHI drivers..

if ACHI drivers are not install then you will get boot errors but more often than not a BSD on boot up!

Thanks, in BIOS (ASUS mobo) on board RAID is disabled and SATA interface is set to EIDE mode. It has always been that way thanks for the suggestion, I checked to see if anything had changed.

[wxman]

Within the BIOS - is the Harddisk interface (SATA) set to ACHI, compatable or ATA

Try setting to ATa or compatable - it just might be that your image does not have the ACHI drivers..

if ACHI drivers are not install then you will get boot errors but more often than not a BSD on boot up!

[Fred Bloggs]

Sorry, the Ghost recovery didn't work. The Ghost image data got written to the "C" HDD from the "D" HDD but it still failed to boot. The Ghost image is on the "D" HDD so is safe from corruption.

I used all the available the options in bootrec.exe-

bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootrec.exe /fixboot
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd etc......

None of the bootrec.exe commands could "see" a Windows install, despite the fact that I knew it was there still. Hence the reformat and reinstall but still the HDD won't boot. I'll buy a new HDD tomorrow, only £36 notes for a Seagate or Western Digital 320Gb HDD. The one that seems toasted is a 320Gb Samsung FWIW.

[VectraMan]

What exactly did you do with bootrec? Linky:

http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/bootse...r-not-the-mbr/

Also I have a feeling some BIOSs can lock access to the MBR. It'd be worth a look through all the settings.

It seems odd that a Norton recovery would appear to work if the drive is shafted.

[Fred Bloggs]

This also applies to USB memory sticks on some machines.

Yes, don't ask me how I know that!

[Fred Bloggs]

Check the BIOS to make sure it is still detecting the HDD.

In the past, I have seen cases where the BIOS has defaulted back to factory settings.

May also be worth seeing if a new BIOS is available and updating accordingly.

Thanks, the HDD's are identified correctly in the MoBo post, so I reckon that the BIOS is "seeing" them just fine. Thanks.

[Fred Bloggs]

I assume that there is nothing in the floppy or CD drives? (Basic, but you never know )

If the PC is useable (when it works), I'd get a new hard drive and copy any data off the old one once it's rebuilt.

If not, then get a new one, get a caddy for the old HDD and plug that in (either USB or Firewire) and copy the data over.

Thanks. Data is secure on the "D" HDD. I checked the "obvious" things thanks.

[Jaws]

I assume that there is nothing in the floppy or CD drives? (Basic, but you never know )

This also applies to USB memory sticks on some machines.

[Clippy]

Check the BIOS to make sure it is still detecting the HDD.

In the past, I have seen cases where the BIOS has defaulted back to factory settings.

May also be worth seeing if a new BIOS is available and updating accordingly.

[TheFaQQer]

I assume that there is nothing in the floppy or CD drives? (Basic, but you never know )

If the PC is useable (when it works), I'd get a new hard drive and copy any data off the old one once it's rebuilt.

If not, then get a new one, get a caddy for the old HDD and plug that in (either USB or Firewire) and copy the data over.

[Fred Bloggs]

My daughter has an Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo Vista PC and two days ago it failed to boot. Saying Boot Failure - Insert System Disk. Repair via the Recovery Console failed (bootrec /fixmbr etc....), a Norton Ghost image restore worked but the HDD still fails to boot, a reformat and reinstall has now also failed to boot the PC into Windows. It looks like the HDD is toast. Or am I missing something? The PC has been entirely faultless for 22 months so can't complain really.

What do the experts think, new HDD? Thanks