# Solved: Disk Boot Failure. Insert System Disk And Press Enter



## rammyboy

Hi i have a self built pentium 4 pc that wont boot.
When i turn it on there is a very long wait at the HP Invent screen (it is a ms 6577 ver 2.1 board) and when it finally gets to the black screen with the slashing dash in the top left hand corner it just flashes for around a minute before saying "DISK BOOT FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"
I have managed to get it to boot once by going into the recovery tool on the XP disk and using "FIXBOOT" but that only worked once and it wont work any more. The specs of the pc are,

PENTIUM 4 1.8GHZ 478
MS 6577 VER 2.1 BOARD
256 MB RAM
20 GB WESTERN DIGITAL HARD DRIVE.

There is nothing to lose on this PC. Thanks in advance. Alex


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## norton850

This is one of those problems where it's best to proceed in a systematic way. The problem could be hardware or software. Let's start with simple hardware items

Make sure no floppies or CDs in their respective drives.
Make sure hard drive is listed as one of the boot devices in BIOS.
Make sure hard drive is recognized when you start up or in BIOS. If not check cables.

Post back if/when you have tried these.


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## rammyboy

Theres no disk in the floppy, It is listed in the bios, and all of the cables are seated correctly. Thanks


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## norton850

Using your windows installation CD you can do a repair install using the second repair option (not the recovery console)
To further check your hard drive go to the drive manufacturer web site and download and run the diagnostic utility.


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## rammyboy

I have done a check using the diagnostic tool with Wetsern Digital and it says theres nothing wrong there but could you please instruct me on how to do thgis properly? I downloaded the tool on another pc, made the floppy and ran it but it didnt look as though it did anything to me? 

Will this fix the slow HP boot screen or is that bios related?


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## norton850

Do you have a full copy of windows XP or just a recovery CD from HP? Do you have any diagnostic CDs from HP?


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## rammyboy

The motherboard was bought off ebay it is not in an actual HP machine so i dont have them but i do have full xp
Thanks ill try reinstalling xp but i dont think this will speed up the 3 minute wait on the load up boot screen?


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## norton850

You might have a bad hard drive (or other hardware problem) or the files on the hard drive could be so corrupted you can't boot. Here is another option--using the second repair choice on the XP CD.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm


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## rammyboy

Hi, i have done a fresh install on the hard drive with xp pro and am getting
"Invalid system disk, replace the disk and press any key to continue"
Please help? Thanks


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## norton850

Just to recheck something what is the boot order in BIOS?


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## rammyboy

Cdrom Then Hd Then Floppy


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## norton850

It may not matter but what happens if you make the hard drive first?


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## rammyboy

still displays same message


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## SirKenin

Western Digital. Hrmph. It has probably toasted itself. WD has a way of doing that on a more than regular basis. I would bet that if you replaced the HDD you wouldn't have any more problems.

You could also try zeroing the drive, but I think this is another typical WD mechanical failure.

You can dowload the WD Diags here.


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## rammyboy

What does "zeroeing" do to the drive and how do i do it? i saw it on the diagnostics disk when i was on it. Thanks


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## SirKenin

It basically wipes the drive clean, writing all zeroes to the drive (data is composed of a series of 1s and 0s, or on and off states). If it is just a corrupt MBR then zeroing the drive before you reinstall MIGHT help you out.


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## rammyboy

Weird one now, ive done this zeroing and reinstallled xp but now oit will only boot by leaving the disk in the drive and letting it boot as normal(not "pressing any key to boot from cd") Ths seems strange to me?


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## SirKenin

There's an easy solution to that actually.. Boot into windows, go into Administrative Tools > Computer Management and set the partition to active. That should solve the problem IIRC.


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## rammyboy

My hrd drive dosent have partitions on it? so i cannot mark one as active?


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## rammyboy

ne1 have any ideas?


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## rammyboy

anyone?


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## VAFarmboy

How did you prepare the HDD for the XP installation ? ?
It sounds like the HDD is not set to active although XP should do this by default.
When you re-boot it is using the CD it's using that to start XP correct? ?
Check in disk management to see if your HDD is set to active. If so enter the BIOS and set the boot order to HDD; CDRom; and floppy.



Is the HDD set as master? If the HDD is set to master, try CS (cable select) Is the CMOS battery good? Are the IDE cables in the right connectors? Is that a seperate XP operating system, or is it just from another computer? Do you have the correct drivers for the MOBO's chipset and all the cards?


This was helpful info from another link - they just wouldnt let me post the link in here


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## rammyboy

SOLVED! 
I changed it back from master to cable select. I changed it about the time i stareted having the problems. Thanks everybody for the help.


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