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XP pro won't boot without cd

H

HotKetchup

Member
I installed WinXP pro fresh with a complete format in NTFS. It installed fine but it won't boot without the installation cd in the drive. I googled for it and found other forum posts with the same problem but none of the responses are the same. The best one I heard was something about a bad boot sector (something to do with MBR). The HDD is a brand new WD 80gb SE. Anyone?
 
What error message do you get without a CD present?

My first guess would be a boot sector problem, but the install process really shouldn't screw that up, so it's a little weird. Try booting to the recovery console from the CD and doing a fixmbr and fixboot.
 
The error I get is "BOOT DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER." When the disk is in the drive during bootup I have the chance to boot into Windows setup, but if I don't press a key to do that it just goes into windows.
 
I just did fixboot and fixmbr and niether worked. Before I call tech support for the components is there anything else I could try?

Though when I try fixmbr, the first line of the message is "This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record." Then it cautions me of the danger of messing up the partition tables. When I type y to continue it says it has completed successfully. But it didn't change anything. Think it might be a damaged platter on the HDD?
 
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