Crash & Disk Boot Failure, Hard Drive unrecognised...

[zoroaster]

I can't be sure this is a hardware issue, but having reformatted C: drive and reloaded windows with no effect, this is what I suspect.

The problem is that after a short period of system run-time, the PC attempts to reboot, no warning, nothing, same as if I'd hit the 'reset' button. Then reboot fails: 'Disk boot failure, insert boot disk and hit enter'. In the bios the Primary Master and Slave says 'None' with 0Mb Capacity. If I remove the IDE ribbon and power supply to the Hard drive, turn the PC on, let it fail to boot, reconnect the IDE and power supply to the Hard Drive, it will then recognise the Hard Drive, and boot successfully, albeit not for very long!

Any ideas?

Laters, Z

"42??? We're going to get lynched!

 

[garebo]

last one

http://www.duxcw.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/447.html

I use wordpad and a screen capture prog like printkey.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[zoroaster]

An update on this one... yeah, I know it's been a while. I managed to stabilise the system by a fluke - I changed the HDD over for another old HDD from another machine, booted it no problem. "Haha!" I thought, "must be a dodgy HDD..." so just to prove myself wrong I put the original HDD back in, and... it booted fine, and has been stable for a good few months!

And then, just last week, the machine froze up during operation, so I hit reset, and again got the old 'Disk boot failure, insert boot disk and hit enter' message, and when I put the win2000 disc in the CDRom to boot from, it reported that NTLoader wasn't found, so I wouldn't boot from the CDRom. Remembering my previous flukey solution, I tried the same thing again - whipped out the HDD, booted from another and replaced the original - problem solved! Anyone got the faintest idea what the hell is going on here?!

Laters, Z

"42??? We're going to get lynched!

 

[garebo]

Well, it could be that the bios isnt holding the hard drive parameters. That would explain it because each time you change hard drives you force the bios to check it out.
So maybe replace the cmos battery.

Recently i had a unit that did roughly the same thing as you are describing, intermittently as well, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didnt and i got the same error messages, no hard drive. It had me puzzled (okay actually angry). On a whim i replaced the ide cable and case closed, all is well with it now. I certainly tossed out the ide cable in a hurry. It looked ok but looks can be deceiving as they say. One of the wires inside will break and thats where the problems start.



Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[zoroaster]

Thanks for replying Garebo - I'll replace them both when I get a moment - (sorry it's been a while, I've been away)!

Laters, Z

"42??? We're going to get lynched!

 

[edfair]

What kind of connector on the HD? Tin plate or gold plate?
Tin plating has a built in problem with corrosion where reseating the cable breaks thru temporarily.
Same problem showed up with memory in the 486 days. The fix then was match type of edge connector with memory socket material.
And with one particular earlier computer the most important repair tool was a "pink pearl" eraser. You got to clean the MOLEX pins at least once a week.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[zoroaster]

Thanks Ed - can I distinguish HDD connector type by colour?

Back to the CMOS battery idea (Garebo) - while the PC was not booting, I did try disconnecting the HDD and rebooting while disconnected, then reconnecting, which got the PC to boot past the total failure to see HDD, but immediately froze up again when it had - would that be consistent or not?

Laters, Z

"42??? We're going to get lynched!

 

[edfair]

Yeah. Gold or tin (as color of a tin can). And the IDH are brite shiny nickel or gold plated. The M/B contacts are also possibly involved. Same possibilities there.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[garebo]

Have you checked the voltage of your bios battery? Its supposed to be 3 volts. Again, if the battery is bad it wont hold ide hard drive info and could cause your problem as listed.
In your last post, by what you describe i would think the hard drive is bad or needs repair, perhaps mbr. In the meantime can you install any other hard drive and see if a different hard drive fixes the problem?



Good advice + great people = tek-tips