# "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk And Press Enter



## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

I am in the process of trying to resurrect a couple of old desktops for my church, and I am not having any luck.

The desktop in question has been in storage for over 3 years and supposedly has Windows 98/98SE in it. It had a single 64 MB PC100 module, so I installed 2 additional 128 MB PC100 modules in the 2 empty RAM slots.

I inserted a fully-bootable startup disk and then hit the power button. A black screen displayed and appeared to recognize all 320 MB of RAM.

I thought that everything was going okay, but then the following message appeared:

*Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press Enter*

I know there's nothing wrong with the startup disk because I have used it in the other desktop to run FDISK and FORMAT C:

I would really appreciate some help.

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## Gary335 (Sep 27, 2005)

Go into BIOS and make sure that the system boot order is A;C, not C;A or any other variation. If the floppy isn't the first boot drive the computer won't recognize that there is a floppy in the drive and will give you that error message. If the boot order is already set A;C, then the problem is probablythat the hard drive needs to be replaced.


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## Jimmy the Hand (Jul 28, 2006)

Also, make sure that the floppy drive is set to the correct size in BIOS, e.g. 1.44 MB.


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## gurutech (Apr 23, 2004)

Also make sure the floppy drive is good and isn't filled with dust. That can cause "read errors". Try swapping out the floppy drive with one that you know works.


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

This is a generic desktop and not a known name brand and isn't displaying what key to press to enter the BIOS, so I'll need to figure out how to access it to check if the floppy drive is listed first.

I don't have any experience with installing and removing drives, so I'm not even going to attempt it. It's too much of a hassle anyway.

I'll be getting back to this desktop tomorrow morning. Thanks for the advice.

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## Jimmy the Hand (Jul 28, 2006)

flavallee said:


> This is a generic desktop and not a known name brand and isn't displaying what key to press to enter the BIOS.


Usually it's the DEL key. Beside that, I've encountered F2 (Hewlett-Packard), F10 (Compaq) and Ctrl-Alt-Esc (AST) so far.


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

I got into the BIOS and confirmed the boot sequence was A,C,D and the floppy drive was set to 1.44 MB.

No more replies are needed for this thread, as I've cannabalized that desktop for parts.

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