Re: FN-FORUM: Boot disk failure

date posted 18th February 2004 17:26

I have a friend that has suddenly received a boot disk failure error
> on booting up his machine. Although previously the machine would
> randomly reset once every few days or sometimes a couple of times
> a day.

I have a similar problem with my old HDD
try
http://www.telemate.fsnet.co.uk/pcd.htm
he is very good!!



>
> I've had the machine here over the weekend to check out and I can't
> get it back up.
>
> It freezes on the post screen that lists the irqs and sits there for a
> minute
> before displaying the boot disk failure error.
>
> Tried booting directly from the xp cd by setting boot from cd in the bios
> but with no change it sticks at the same screen and produces the same
> error message.
>
> Finally got somewhere when I dug up an old win98 boot disk although
> it seems to try the disk first, it wines away, stops for a minute then
> goes back into it to boot.
>
> Once in dos I can get into the xp cd and attempt to run recovery.
> But on running winnt.exe it starts copying files, listing them as it
> does so, after a minute it no longer lists them but the message
> stays stating it's copying files. Left it for at least 1/2 hr over the
> weekend at this point with no change, the cd wineing away the whole time.
>
> I've taken the hd out the machine and plugged it into another,
> all the data is still there, checked for errors, defragged, ran virus
> scan, adaware and plugged it back in the dody machine with
> no change.
>
> The only obvious thing I haven't tried is download the xp floppy boot
> disks.
> Mainly because it seems such hassle and I have no floppies.
> Plus I'm not sure it will make much difference.
>
> One final point that could be the root of the whole problem.
> It's a dodgy copy of xp pro with no patches installed.
>
> I emailed a few friends and clients about the recent critical
> update last week and my mate tried to update but got a piracy
> message. His system died a day later, although it has had
> the random reset problem for about a month he says.
> God knows what other dodgy software he's got running on it.
>
> So any ideas anybody? Is it worth the hassle of trying the xp
> boot floppies? The guy is panic stricken and promises to go
> buy a legit copy of xp as soon as his baby is working again. :)
>
> Would rewriting the mbr work? Can I do that whilst it's plugged
> into another machine?
>
> Sigh... I could do without this.
>
> Any help gratefully received.
>
> regards,
>
> Darren Yates
> [EMAIL REMOVED]
> http://dittodesign.co.uk
> http://www.how-to-make-money-online.info
>
>
>
>
>
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