Disk boot failure?

[sn00ke]

I had a Seagate Barracuda in my primary computer die on me a few months back, sent away for a replacement and got it back awhile ago but only decided to install it now. Thing is, when I turn on the machine , it goes through POST and then just displays the message "Disk Boot Failure. Insert System Disk And Press Enter."

I tried inserting both a Windows 7 DVD (burned .iso from the student deal) and XP CD but got the same message. I thought it might be a boot order problem so I checked the BIOS but the CD drive was the primary device.

The HDD is SATA and my CD Drive is IDE. I'm pretty mystified as to what's wrong.

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System specs:
ASUS M2N-E / AMD 64 X2 5200+
Seagate Barracuda 250Gb
3Gb DDR2 Ram
Geforce 8800GT 512Mb
Enermax 650W PSU

 

[RebateMonger]

I'm not understanding your question, I guess. It seems like you are expecting an empty disk sent from Seagate to boot to Windows? Not trying to be insulting. That's just how your question reads.

I don't know why the Win7 DVD or XP isn't booting. It'd have nothing to do with the new hard disk. That normally be a bad CD/DVD reader or bad cabling. Or the CD/DVD reader isn't actually set somewhere in the boot order in BIOS.

Of course, if you are trying to boot from a DVD, be sure your reader is a DVD reader. It's easy to make that mistake. But you said it wasn't reading an XP Install CD, either.

You need to get the DVD reader working first. If you have another DVD reader, try that one. Or put the DVD reader in another PC and see if it reads and if it's bootable there. Double-check cabling and replace the cables if things still aren't working.

 

[sn00ke]

I was just using CD drive as a colloquial term. It's the only disk drive installed and is a dvd burner itself.

My boot order is set up with the disk drive as the primary, HDD as secondary and removable as tertiary. I wasn't sure if I burned the Win7 disk incorrectly but the system should have definitely started a regular installation with the XP disk in the drive. The hardware configuration and cabling hasn't changed since I removed the dead HDD so I'm not really sure what's wrong. The HDD spins up and the DVD drive makes an attempt to read whatever is inside it so I'm pretty sure that they've been recognized.

Is there a heading in BIOS where I can check if the drives have been recognized?

edit: Could this all be a symptom of the dvd drive being damaged? When I was waiting for the HDD to get back to me, I tried to remove a dead drive which had gotten wedged inside it's cage. I had to bash a bit to knock it loose so maybe the vibration transferred to my current dvd drive below it?

 

[Paperlantern]

What architecture are your devices? SATA? IDE? Mix?

 

[sn00ke]

A mix. The HDD is SATA and the Dvd drive is IDE.

 

[Paperlantern]

My guess is you have to set up the BIOS of the machine to handle a mix of devices to allow it to boot to the IDE device, it might be configured for SATA only. I dont know what BIOS is on that board offhand, but there should be the option in there somewhere. Usually its a setting in the storage area or devices section. "Combination" or something to that effect is what you should look for.

 

[sn00ke]

Well this just got interesting...

I went into BIOS but couldn't find any settings for mixed devices so I exited and just for laughs, put in the Win7 disk again.

And the damn thing booted up! It got as far as a Win7 splash screen for what I believe is the installation, but just hung there. The disc spun down and if I let it sit, it would spin back up for a few seconds but nothing else would happen.

I'm wondering if this is a sign that the drive is broken? Have you guys encountered this kind of working/non working phenomena before? I can go out and buy a new drive but money is kind of tight so I'd rather have more than a hunch to justify the spending.

 

[RebateMonger]

Well, you can always disconnect everything but the IDE DVD drive and set up the DVD as the only disk and set to boot first. If you have "good" DVD or CD boot disk, it certainly should try to boot to the DVD drive. If it tries and fails, then it's a bad disk, a bad DVD reader, a bad cable, or the motherboard/disk controller is failing.

It's really hard to diagnose this stuff without spare parts to work with. There's too many variables. Most people have a spare PC to temporarily borrow from or test parts with.