[NocTeRnOsPiRiTeD]

I read the thread, "How-to repair Windows XP, How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade," and I still couldn't boot my computer. The funny thing was it worked once at another room where I tapped F8 and the computer booted from Windows XP disc. Then I performed the system repair and completed it. I thought everything was fine and when I moved the computer back to my room, the same thing happened. The thing is this time I can't even boot from CD. It doesn't seem to detect it. When it loads up the second DOS screen, it would sometimes say "No HPA Enabled Drive, Press Any Key to Boot ... " or most of the time, "Disk Boot Failure, Please Insert System Disk and press enter ..." where when I do press enter, it loads another screen where it would say the same exact thing in one line. I ran out of ideas on how to boot from the disk. There's nothing that saids, press any key to boot from disk so I 'm not sure what to do. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

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Hi,
Just a wild guess,but since moving your computer was involved,
look for loose connections.
make sure all your connectors are plugged in and seated properly
(I'm talking about inside the case) Unplug and re-insert .
Unplug the power first,then do your thing
Afterwards,also check external connectors and all power connections.

[DiggerP]

Hi,
Just a wild guess,but since moving your computer was involved,
look for loose connections.
make sure all your connectors are plugged in and seated properly
(I'm talking about inside the case) Unplug and re-insert .
Unplug the power first,then do your thing
Afterwards,also check external connectors and all power connections.

[NocTeRnOsPiRiTeD]

Hmm, doesn't seem to be working. Connections look fine and stuff.

Not sure if this might be related (which I thought it probably did) was this happened right after a thunderstorm. It was working fine and the thunderstorm ended. Then perhaps a few hours later I turned the computer off to go to sleep and when I got up to turn it back on, this happened.

It's not the power source because I ran my old computer (one I'm using now to access internet) through the same wires and connections my currently unbootable computer and it worked fine. Thanks though =D

[DiggerP]

Hi,
Yes there is the possibility that something got zapped from a spike during the thunderstorm.
One thing though,since you still get some messages on the screen,
your motherboard or at least part of it ,is still OK.

Can you get a bootdisc or rescue disc from somewhere?
Then again your XP disc should also work.(But you said it didn't - so
maybe your BIOS got corrupted.
Have you checked the settings there?

[NocTeRnOsPiRiTeD]

Hmm, the bootdisc is not the XP disc?

I checked over my BIOS so many times.. not sure if the settings are messed up there. The thing I go to the BIOS is to change the Boot order.

The thing I want is for the computer to boot from disc which it doesn't. Hmm...

EDIT:: Hmm, i manage to boot from cd now right after i set the computer to load the FAIL SAFE stuff from BIOS... Hmm maybe you're right, BIOS probably corrupted so it couldn't boot from CD. Let me see if it works this time.

Edited by NocTeRnOsPiRiTeD, 13 June 2007 - 09:32 AM.

[DiggerP]

Yes,it's usually advisable to set the CD Rom drive as the first to boot from.
2nd in line is your main drive.If you have a floppy drive you could add that too,
possibly even before the CD Rom.

People say that it slows down your startup,but it does so only by a few seconds
to check the drives.To me no big deal for the convenience you get,
especially in cases like this,

The reason I said to get a rescue disc is that with that or a Live CD,
you can check your drive,hardware make changes to your boot.ini if necessary etc.

Here is just one example:
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

There are many others.a search for Rescue disc,Live CD etc will give you plenty of links.
There is also DSL and Puppy Linux and LiveXP versions.BartPE UBCD4Win etc.

[NocTeRnOsPiRiTeD]

oh thanks.. now i have another problem, my computer won't detect my hard drive. It worked before but now it doesn't. I replugged the hard drive and it still doesn't work. Not sure what to do to test if my hard drive is malfunctioning or something. It's not detectable anymore for some reason.

[DiggerP]

Do you have the diagnostic floppy from the harddrive manufact?
If not you can D/L the file for it from their site.
BTW I hope you unplugged and reconnecteded the drive without the power on it.

[NocTeRnOsPiRiTeD]

lol yeah i unplugged.

My friend is helping me find the floppy to let the motherboard detect the SATA. I'll see if that would work.

[NocTeRnOsPiRiTeD]

Ahh the floppy disc method doesn't work neither. I installed the drive but at the end the "seup did not find any hard disk drives installed."

[DiggerP]

Sorry it didn't work.I'm running out of ideas.
Being a SATA drive it may not work in your old computer I guess.
If it did,you could at least find out if the drive is still ok.
I don't know how to test the motherboard separately though.

Maybe someone else could jump in with some ideas.

[NocTeRnOsPiRiTeD]

Yeah, I know SATA drive can work for my computer because I've been using it for a few years already.

Not sure if something went short or something. It's either some lose connections (can't find any), hard disk malfunction or motherboard.

Thanks for your help btw.

[DiggerP]

Hi,
You're welcome,Sorry I couldn''t be of more help.
I do have some more help links:
http://askbobrankin....e_recovery.html
There are lots of links in this article.
Be sure to follow the link to Testdisk and its own links.

Pete.

PS. I did find some more info to test the mobo.
You could use a socalled "Post Card" to check it.
You can find it here ,plus a lot of other useful stuff.
http://www.knightdis...om/computer.htm
If you do a search like, test motherboard or motherboard test etc
there's a whole lot of info available.

Edited by DiggerP, 14 June 2007 - 05:37 PM.

[NocTeRnOsPiRiTeD]

Oh, I see. Well my friend came over and took my hard drive to test on his comp. It didn't work so it's probably the hard drive that is corrupt. I'm going send it back under warranty and get a new drive. I won't be able to retrieve my data though =( . At least I get a free drive lol.
I guess a new drive would solve my problem, so thanks again for your time. I appreciate your help.

[DiggerP]

If it was still spinning,you might be able to recover some data.
You may not have had the chance to explore all the links and info,
but I read that while sometimes Windows can't read a drive, it still may be read
under Linux.
I would definitely try one of the rescue discs or file recovery prpgrams,
a lot of that stuff is free,but that's up to you.
(provided of course it still spins up)
Can you run a Live CD on the machine?