[Casper_aa]

My pc has been working fine lately but last night i switched it off and later my dad switched it on to find it was coming up with a 'disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter' message.

Im really not sure what to do, i checked the bios boot order and it was 1. Hdd 2. Hdd 3. Cd/Rom.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, if it helps my OS is Vista.

[Advertisements]

Im really not sure what to do, i checked the BIOS boot order and it was 1. Hdd 2. Hdd 3. Cd/Rom.

OK this is the boot sequence. The issue is if the BIOS actually sees the hd.
Normally this would be in the General area or the first page of the BIOS when it first starts up. That depends on which BIOS you have. Does it see the HD there?
Does you BIOS have a auto detect HD option?
If so please click on it to see if it sees the HD then.

[rshaffer61]

Im really not sure what to do, i checked the BIOS boot order and it was 1. Hdd 2. Hdd 3. Cd/Rom.

OK this is the boot sequence. The issue is if the BIOS actually sees the hd.
Normally this would be in the General area or the first page of the BIOS when it first starts up. That depends on which BIOS you have. Does it see the HD there?
Does you BIOS have a auto detect HD option?
If so please click on it to see if it sees the HD then.

[Casper_aa]

Im really not sure what to do, i checked the BIOS boot order and it was 1. Hdd 2. Hdd 3. Cd/Rom.

OK this is the boot sequence. The issue is if the BIOS actually sees the hd.
Normally this would be in the General area or the first page of the BIOS when it first starts up. That depends on which BIOS you have. Does it see the HD there?
Does you BIOS have a auto detect HD option?
If so please click on it to see if it sees the HD then.

I think i have a gigabyte ga ep45 ud3lr mobo (got that by reading whats on it so im not sure), i couldnt see an auto detect HD option.

Edited by Casper_aa, 05 August 2010 - 07:33 AM.

[rshaffer61]

OK the hd should be listed in the BIOS somewhere. It should give you the model number of it either in the General area or in the Advanced area.

[Casper_aa]

OK the hd should be listed in the BIOS somewhere. It should give you the model number of it either in the General area or in the Advanced area.

I couldnt see anything in 'Advanced BIOS Features' so i went into 'Standard CMOS Features' and i see a list of IDE Channels. Ide Channel 0 Slave had [HL -DT -ST DVDRAM GH22] which is the closest thing i could find to a model number.

[rshaffer61]

From what you are describing it looks like your hd has failed. If you know the manufacturer of your hd please use their diagnostic toll from the link below. If you don't then use the Sea Tools cd ISO one as it will test the most different types of the manufacturers hd's.
Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.

NOTE. If your hard drive is made by Toshiba, unfortunately, you're out of luck, because Toshiba doesn't provide any diagnostic tool.

Thanks to Broni for the instructions

[Casper_aa]

Thanks for the help!

I will have to buy some more blank cds and try this tomorrow. Good thing i was needing some more cds anyway. It's a seagate harddrive so i was able to get an iso file.

[rshaffer61]

Great news and I will watch for your results tomorrow.

[Casper_aa]

Great news and I will watch for your results tomorrow.

Ok so i used imgburn to burn the iso file to a rw disc. Started it up in my pc and it says 'No Hard Drives Found' after scanning.

Looks like bad news for my hard drive then.

[rshaffer61]

Yep the last step you can try is to slave the drive in another system and see if it is recognized there. If not then it's a good bet the drive has died.