Disk boot failure

[DawnP]

On a Windows XP Home edition PC, I am getting this error message:

"Disk boot failure, Insert system disk and press enter"

The problem is, I don't have the O/S disk. What I'd like to do at this point is just reformat the hard drive and install 2000 Professional. How do I reformat when I really can't do anything? I just keep getting the error message above.

 

[DavidDCSA]

If you have the media for installation of 2000 Professional, just boot off of that media to do your install. You may have to enter your BIOS to tell your PC to boot from CD.

 

[DawnP]

It's not working. I put the 2000 cd in, and the bios is set to boot to cd-rom first, but now I'm getting "error loading operating system".

 

[wolluf]

Are you sure bios is set correctly?

Do you get 'press any key to boot from CD' message? (you do need to press a key to boot from CD).

You could always start the 2k install off from the 4 boot floppies if the install CD won't boot (presume CD and drive are ok)? You can create the floppies by running makeboot or makbt32 on the install CD - or download from

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm.

 

[DawnP]

I don't get the 'press any key to boot from CD' message.

makeboot or makbt32 are not working.

I downloaded the files you said from the website, but it says they can't fit on my new floppies. Brand new floppies out of the box, formatted, high density. Even though the box says 1.44 mb, when i look at them in explorer on another pc, they say 1.38 mb. The disks I'm supposed to make are 1.40 mb. Any ideas?

 

[wolluf]

The machine you are trying to create the floppies on is ok? There should be NO problem using brand new floppies (windows always reports normal 1.44 floppies as 1.38MB) - with either makeboot/makebt32 or the download. Can only suggest formatting the floppies on the machine first, then try again - or try on another machine if you have access to one.

 

[DawnP]

Ok, did it. Still no good. It makes it through all the floppies, then when it needs to read off the CD, it doesn't recognize it.

 

[bcastner]

Copy the CD contents onto the hard disk. You need only the i386 folder, so create a folder \i386 and do the copy from CD to the hard drive.

Then type from DOS: c:\i386\winnt.exe

See:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=304868

 

[wolluf]

Dawn,

You may have a hardware problem - may be as simple as a failed CD drive, or IDE cables not connected properly. I'd certainly check inside the machine first. Are the hard drive and CD drives being recognised by the bios (do their details appear on the POST screen at boot?). If they do, can you boot the machine with a win98 boot floppy (available here

http://www.bootdisk.htm

if you haven't one) with CD support. Then see if you can read the CD from dos prompt (change to CD drive letter - will be D: or E: depending on version of boot disk, then just try 'dir' to list the CD's files/folders).