Boot Disk Failure - Again and Again...

tstearns78

Junior Member
May 23, 2003
1
0
0
Greetings All,

I have been having an issue with my computer for the past 2 months. On "random" occasions when I boot-up my computer, it will make the initial boot-up sound (1 beep) and then make a quick double beep a few seconds later. At the point when the computer makes the double beep it is having trouble finding IDE devices. After about half a minute, the computer will continue what seems to be its normal boot-up, but then sit at the screen just before the Window's XP boot-up screen. After the failed attempt to boot-up, I receive a "Boot Disk Failure" error message. My current resolution has been to shut-off the computer by the main power switch (since the restart button will not work during this problem) and try again 5 minutes later. Eventually, after multiple restarts the computer will finally boot-up normally. I am concerned because I fear one of these times the computer will not boot-up, and the frequency of the problem seems to be increasing.

Prior to this problem occuring, over the span of three months I had updated some of the hardware on my computer. I had an Athlon processor 2100+XP, a GeForce Ti4600, and an Audigy 2 installed into my computer. In addition, I also increased my RAM to 1G (added 512MB). I am assuming that one of these components has now made my computer upset, but I would think the problem would have to be constant to be related to one of these components.

I believed that this might be a problem with my power supply. When I first began experiencing this problem, my power supply died. I took my computer in to get fixed, and it turns out that my power supply had indeed died. The technician installed a 300W (the original was 325W) power supply, and guarenteed that it would provide enough power for all my new parts. At that point in time, I had associated the error beeps with a failing power supply and assumed it would go away after having a new power supply installed; I was wrong.

Worried that this might be a sign of a failing hard drive, I ran Maxtor's test software and my hard drive is reported to be in error-free (normal) condition. I also do not have any weird noises coming from my hard drive -- its relatively silent.

I routinely check to make sure all my cables are tightly in place, but never replaced any cabling to see if that may be the problem (not sure if this would cause a "random" problem).

I am good about keeping up-to-date on drivers for all devices (including the motherboard, which is a DFI AD70-SC).

I have tried my best in researching possible causes for this problem, but am clueless as to why my computer insists on randomly having boot-up failures. Therefore, I am now turning to you for help, since I have just about exhausted all possible solutions I can think of. If you should have any information on what might possibly cause this problem and any solutions to correct them, please let me know.

Thank You In Advance!
 

jyates

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2001
3,847
0
76
May not be of any help to you but a friend brought me a computer that was
awfully slow to boot. It stayed in the post screen a long time before win98se
would come up and then sometimes we would get a message that no boot
device could be found.

I looked and he had the jumper on the hard drive in the wrong place. It was a
western digital and I've found that they run fine with no jumper on them when
they are the only device on the ide channel.

Pulled the jumper off and it booted quickly and never got any no boot devices again.

Jim
 

bendixG15

Diamond Member
Mar 9, 2001
3,483
0
0
I had a similiar problem and it was the mobo while I was speculating that it was
the CPU overheating.
Replaced motherboard and problem was gone.
Good Luck is all I can do.;
 

lenjack

Platinum Member
Oct 10, 1999
2,706
7
81
I had the same problem. I pulled both hard drives to check them and was amazed that one was jumpered improperly. I used to think this would result in a repeatable problem, but it is apparently intermittent.