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Community Newsletter: Q&A: Disk boot failure: What is it and what can I do to resolve it
- 8/17/07 10:22 AM
Don't Waste Time Recovering...
by H41N - 7/31/07 11:46 PM In reply to: One Solution - Nothing Else! by mercerikSystem Recovery, destructive or non, isn't going to fix a DBF error on boot.
It's hardware related. The only thing recoveries are good for on Pavilions is a reimage. And the NDR usually won't even correct that.
Recovering the system won't correct anything hardware related on the machine. They're designed as I said to reimage, and will correct things like driver issues, corrupt installs out of the box, etc.
Trust me, I did probably 20-25 a day with customers for 3 years when I did Pavilion support.
Disk boot Failure
by rotcivkho - 7/30/07 2:45 PM In reply to: Disk boot failure: What is it and what can I do to resolve it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Try replacing your power supply first, maybe it is defective, power loss to a hard disk also displays disk boot failure and system hangs from time to time. even if you reformat again and again, the same problem will appear if your power supply is defective.
disk boot failure
by razz4040 - 8/3/07 9:36 PM In reply to: Disk boot Failure by rotcivkhoI have talked with a couple of computer techs. I have been advise to leave my computer on when I am not using it. Cold starting your computer every day can do more harm to the hardware, software and drivers than leaving it on 24 hours a day. It takes a great amount of resources to cold start a computer. It is true that the hard drive may not be ready when the mother board is after a cold start. If you leave the computer on and have to do a warm start then the hard drive is already warmed up and ready to go. If you are worried about the components overheating then make sure the vents are clear of any lent and dust and there are no other obstructions in the way of the vents that could prevent air from circulating into the tower. Also the advice I have read about you power supply is also true. You may have to call HP and have them send you a power supply that rated to 400 watts. I have a HP computer and ran into similar problems and had to have a new power supply. But keep your computer on, keep the vents clear and do as few cold starts as you possibly can.
System Recovery
by Broandrew - 7/30/07 5:29 PM In reply to: Disk boot failure: What is it and what can I do to resolve it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Marlene,
You should not have to delete the information already on you hard drive. HP has a great system recovery program on there system. I would yet be a little skeptical about what you have bought from HP. I know with a computer I had bought a few years back the same thing happend to myself. One of the things that I had found out after this problem was that I had a bad stick of RAM. This caused the same type of issues at first it was not able to start properly like your own. Then I was not able to burn or install programs to my system. The diagnostic tools I had were top of the line a the time. Nothing showed the RAM to be bad yet once I had replaced it all my problems stopped. Second was that I found was this happend more and more when I had set the system to shut down automatically after not being used for a period of time or to go into sleep mode. One other thing that you might need to check is do you have a Virus scanner on the computer and is this virus scanner working properly.
Unfortunately I now use a MAC and do not follow much of the system tools out there for PC's although Norton Utilities has always been a great program to use and I do believe they have a free software for such diagnostics. I hope this will work.
Boot Disk error
by Twinniecarol - 7/31/07 2:05 AM In reply to: Disk boot failure: What is it and what can I do to resolve it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hiya,
This error usually appears when you have a dvd or cd in your machine when you start.
Basically your computer is set to look for a boot disk each time it starts in case of sytem breakdown. If the disk in the machine isn't a windows start up disk it will show system boot disk error and then boot from the hard drive.
It should be nothing at all to worry about as long as your windows loads ok from the hd.
Rest assured that if you do have to boot from a cd sometime your machine is set up to go straight to it to find it.
I hope this helps.
Carol
Right on
by RotoRooterGuy - 8/3/07 9:37 PM In reply to: Boot Disk error by TwinniecarolI have sometimes had boot problems where the fix was to remove the CD or DVD from the tray.
And the problem was caused by exactly what you say, my boot sequence [as I had set up in my BIOS instructions] was to go to the DVD drive first, then the floppy, then the hard disk. [I had it on this setting when doing virus checks when I thought I had a virus].
Failing to set it back to boot up to C first, I would get a boot error or an eternal flashing cursor. Once I removed the disc, like magic, PC would boot up.
Great tip that you posted.
Floppy disk
by mircea.ro - 7/31/07 8:38 PM In reply to: Disk boot failure: What is it and what can I do to resolve it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Check if you have a floppy disk in the floppy drive. If you have one, remove it and turn on the computer.
Potential winning answers
by Lee Koo (ADMIN) - 8/3/07 3:01 PM
In reply to: Disk boot failure: What is it and what can I do to resolve it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Here are the selected submissions grouped in one post. Read through them and place your votes in the newsletter poll.
Answer:
Disk Boot Failure on initial startup.
Marlene,
I've seen this bit of weirdness in the past. The issue is actually fairly simple to diagnose.
What seems to be happening in this situation is as follows:
The computer starts off in a "cold" state - meaning it's been off for some time.
1.) You hit the power button
2.) The power supply engages, starts feeding power to the peripherals and the motherboard.
3.) The motherboard "wakes up" and begins it's POST (Power On Self Test) sequence.
4.) Peripherals (hard and optical drives) being their POST sequences as well.
Now then, the POST for the motherboard finishes before the hard drive finishes spinning up and POSTing itself. Therefore, when the motherboard's finished, the hard drive is still not ready for action. The motherboard decides it's not going to wait for the hard drive to finish and the motherboard fails the drive.
Now, if you hit the reset switch, the next time the computer boots, it recognizes the hard drive as it's already had a chance to power up at least partially.
So... What's the cause? When you power up a computer, all of the devices that are connected to it are activated at the same time so they can, if nothing else, be at the ready when the system comes online. So, if you've got a LOT of devices - two hard drives, two optical drives, multiple USB devices that draw power from the USB port, etc..., then it may be the power supply is inadequate for the task at hand. Additionally, things like video cards/chipsets can be quite power hungry.
Having a weak power supply can be the problem. Unfortunately, vendors these days tend to be as cheap as possible with their hardware. After all, they do want to make a profit. The problem lies, however, when the system and the components in it require say, 350 watts and the power supply installed is only rated at 300 or even 250 watts MAX. The word "MAX" appears on many power supplies these days - and means the power supply can deliver a maximum of it's rated wattage for a short period of time. It doesn't mean it can deliver that for an extended period of time.
However, it can also be the hard drive itself. Some drives tend to be "lazy" and not come up to their "ready" state fast enough.
Either way, wiping the hard drive and starting over isn't going to be a solution.
So...what to do about this... Given your post, it would seem you've only had the system for a couple of months and that means it should still be under warranty. The obvious fix would be to power it off, crack open the case and look at the power supply. If it's fairly small - say a 250 or 300 watt PSU, a replacement with a 400 or 450 watt PSU would be the quick fix - however, replacing it yourself could possibly void your warranty. Contact HP for assistance.
If the power supply is rated to be a reasonable amount, it could be faulty. It happens. Contact HP for a replacement.
The first thing I would suggest would be to have the computer checked out by someone who's got a larger power supply handy. If it seems to solve the problem, take the results of the test and going to HP and insisting (politely, of course) that they do something about it.
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=257993&messageID=2550499#2550499
Submitted by Wolfie2k5
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Answer:
Houston, we have a hardware problem
Hi Marlene,
This is indeed a frustrating problem. Without having access to your PC to test it, it's hard to say for certain what it is, but I think I can give you some idea what may be happening. My thought is that you have a hardware problem, and you need a new motherboard, or possibly hard drive. Maybe even power supply. I'll explain why.
First, 'boot disk' is (almost certainly) your C drive - the disk Windows usually lives on. The failure means that for some reason, while trying to boot, there was a problem reading the hard drive. You probably know this.
Now there are two different places this (or similar) error can occur, and as you didn't say exactly when it happens, I'll cover both.
The first is during POST when the hardware is getting itself ready to load. It's checked out basic processor and memory function (and a whole lot else), initialized the hardware, and then it tries to find the operating system. If at this point it can't find a disk with windows - it will complain...
Now since HP suggested running CHKDSK, I suspect it gets started and fails during boot. After all, a fragmented disk doesn't matter if you can't even start booting!
Now I have had disk boot errors when I've tried to put a hard drive onto a different motherboard. The reason here is that the drivers set up in Windows for the old motherboard would not work for the new motherboard and everything falls apart. However, this always happens - just rebooting won't fix it. This isn't your problem.
However, if you have a Windows (software) problem, you can expect it to do the same thing every time during boot. Yes I know Windows has ... idiosyncrasies? but the odd happenings usually occur after it's been running a while.
But your problem happens some times and not others. It happens when the computer is cold (just switched on), and then when you try again it works. The thing about software is that (fundamentally) the same code with the same data does thing every time. But hardware... When hardware is acting up all sorts of strange and inconsistent things can happen. Sometimes.
Now what can happen that makes a boot fail - and then succeed at the next try?
One thing is temperature. It is possible that something, perhaps a solder joint or other connection, doesn't make good contact when cold, but does when warm. Perhaps a component changes characteristics with temperature, and only works properly (or well enough) when warm. This applies to any chips, including the processor.
Another possibility is the simple fact that the machine is switched on and the power supply is present. It's just possible an electrolytic condenser is defective and causes a malfunction, but after it's been on a while, the fact that the voltage is present allows it to heal itself and work well enough.. until it's switched off again...
Now HP has had you run diagnostics and turned up nothing wrong. I'd say of course not - you can only run diagnostics after booting - and by the time you can boot, the problem has gone away.
one thing you can try - as soon as you switch on, press f1 to enter the BIOS to stop it booting. Wait a few minutes and then exit the BIOS and let it boot. If it does, it sounds a lot like warm-up problems.
So my strong suspicion is you have a hardware problem. If it's under warranty - get it fixed or replaced. Right now it is an irritation, but, whenever hardware is messing up, it's only likely to get worse. And you'd be really upset if it limped along just long enough for the warranty to expire.
If it's out of warranty it's a case of can you live with the inconvenience .. and remember to take frequent backups.
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=257993&messageID=2551129#2551129
Submitted by redking44
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Answer:
Disk Boot Failure - Some Things To Try
Marlene,
The disk boot failure could come from a number of sources. As an ex-HP tech, I can offer some solutions one or a combination of which will hopefully correct the error.
First, check your BIOS settings to see if S.M.A.R.T drive reporting is enabled. If it is, disable it and give it a test run of 2-3 days under a regular rebooting cycle to see if the error persists. S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology)is a somewhat outdated standard developed as an "early warning" system to detect hard disk issues. If your desktop is newer, it may not even be available as an option as it is not widely used these days. The SMART technology while useful under certain circumstances had an extremely wide margin of error and would throw errors on boot occasionally when there would be nothing from either a physical or configuration standpoint failing or pending failing in the drive.
While we're in the BIOS, I'd recommend that you ensure that it is recognizing the drive correctly on each startup. The easiest way to ensure this is to reset your BIOS default settings. While on the BIOS screen, look for an indication either along the top or bottom designated by one of the function keys (I believe it used to be F10 to restore defaults). Be sure to save your changes and exit. Again, where you did not get the error every time, you may need to monitor it's progress to see if the error returns.
Second, physically check all cabling. A loose or in some cases failing IDE cable (assuming it is an IDE and not SATA connection) will produce these errors in the Pavilion line (and most others I would well imagine). Power everything completely down, remove the side of the case to give access to the drives and start with reseating the cable both at the drive end and the controller (where they plug into the motherboard) ends. Ultimately, if you were to pick up (or could somehow borrow) a different IDE cable to test for a short time it may also call out a failed or failing cable as well.
Third, we can't overlook the possibility of a failed drive itself. Formatting and/or recovering the drive will most likely not correct an error of this type. If any of the steps on the HP forums resemble those suggested above and have already been attempted, the issue may well point to the disk itself. How old is your system out of curiosity. HP had a now-infamous recall issue back at the early part of 2001-2002 with a batch of Fujitsu brand hard disks. Although I am skeptical that there are still some of those offending drives floating around (and if so that you are only receiving errors 6 years later :)), the company *are* still obligated to replace should the drive be determined to be part of this recall. I realize this option is quite a stretch given the timeframe.
Keeping with issues with the drive itself however, if all steps listed above don't correct the errors, there could be a strong possibility of a failing disk. Since you say it will boot on occasion the failure may not be severe enough at this stage to completely fail, but a total inability to boot may be looming on the horizon. If the system is still within the warranty, HP will replace the drive for you (you will most likely have to ship the tower to them in a postage-paid box they will send you if you are unfamiliar with the repair process).
Should the system be outside of any manufacturer or extended warranty you may have purchased additionally, you will need to purchase and have a new hard drive installed. Some facilities may be able to salvage information off your original disk for transfer (although where you are still at a point where your OS boots occasionaly, backing up data important to you is something I would go about starting ASAP) before installing the new one.
I hope one or a combination of the recommendations I've made correct your issue. Keep me posted if possible.
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=257993&messageID=2552073#2552073
Submitted by H41N
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Answer:
Disk boot failure
I have had this message a number of times. There were different explanations on different occasions.
Before you do anything else, back up your computer. The time it takes to back up is much less than the time it takes to recover from a disk failure (if you can). I've been there. At the very least, back up your documents, pictures, music files, and data files.
Two possibilities you need to consider: your system is attempting to boot from a disk/drive/card without a system file, or your Master Boot Record (MBR) is faulty, a sign your hard disk may be about to fail.
The first possibility occurred to me: my computer (a Gateway Core 2 Duo) was giving me the message 'Unable to find DOS.' It turned out that it was trying to boot from a memory card in my USB-connected photo printer. When you boot/reboot, you may see a (sometimes brief) message "Press <Del> to setup BIOS options" or similar message. The keys are usually <Del>, <F2>, <F10>, or <F12>. When you are brought into your Setup screen, go to Boot Options. The most frequent sequence for boot is <Floppy> (if you have one), Optical Drive (CD/DVD drive) and HD0, your main hard drive. Unless you have a boot system on a USB flash drive, you do not want your machine to attempt to boot to a USB. This was the cause of my difficulty. I had to disable 'Boot USB First', an option I hadn't seen when I set up the machine.
If this does not work, you need to try to refresh your Master Boot Record. I have a program from GRC associates (www.grc.com) called SpinRite, which refreshes the signals on the tracks on your drives. It has save a failing drive long enough to allow me to copy it over to another drive. There are other programs, including free ones, that will refresh your MBR. A copy of your MBR is kept in the early tracks on the hard drive, and various programs will 'refresh' your MBR.
If you succeed in getting your computer to boot, I suggest you think about a new hard drive. The 'failure to boot' is often the early death call of a failing hard drive.
If your drive fails to boot, not all is lost. Borrow a hard drive from a friend who has the same OS as your computer. Use the other hard drive to back up your hard disk. Once a drive has failed to boot, I replace it and use it as auxiliary storage for non-critical data (e.g., music and video files I can replace).
I hope this is helpful.
Whatever the outcome of your situation, I cannot emphasize enough backing up your hard drives periodically (e.g., once a month) and your data files frequently (daily). Been there. Done that. Saved my skin more than once.
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=257993&messageID=2550279#2550279
Submitted by: qdon
I disagree with all 4 of the selected answers
by jercro - 8/3/07 7:56 PM In reply to: Potential winning answers by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
It sounds to me more like a hardware setting rather than a hardware failure. Check the drive jumper settings on all drives connected to the motherboard. One may be set to Master drive and one to Cable select. Or even the cable may be making a bad connection. Everybody wants to make a big deal out of a "No Operating system" error or no hardrive available error. When the MB posts the first thing it does after checking the memory is check the drives available, and lists them in order. If the CMOS is listing the correct drives at Posts, then the drives are spun up and ready to read. The only thing that would cause them to mis read is a bad cable or a mis set jumper on the drive. First thing I would do is replace the cable and chedk the jumper settings. Or if it is set to Cable Select, switch it to Master drive. Make sure you are using an 80 wire cable if you are using Cable Select jumper on the drive. Cable select doesn't work well with 40 wire cables. And I've seen a lot of new computers that still have 40 wire cables on a mother board and harddrive that supports UDMA 133 which requires an 80 wire cable. Also if the CD is also connected to the same cable as the harddrive, you need to check the jumper on it to be sure it is compatable with that of the harddrive, i.e. Master and Slave, or both set to Cable select.
Sometimes new computers don't have all the connections fully pushed on or have wiggled loose in transit so check that and Make sure all drive cables are fully set into the connections.
Been my experience that most errors from failure to find operating system is either a bad cable or a mis set jumper.
That is from tech experience in the field, not from a support tech.
I disagree with 3 of them and yours!
by ldsaint - 8/4/07 12:16 AM In reply to: I disagree with all 4 of the selected answers by jercroThe ex HP tech guy is the only one that speaks with a proper air of diagnostic ability, everyone else seems to start with "I had a similar problem" and seems to be just comparing their experiences. HP have good build quality and good technical support. They tend not to build one off systems so I doubt they have built this one with the wrong settings, or hardware compatibility. I think my previous answer was the best, and thats to simply take it back to the shop. Don't mess with things under warrantee you only invalidate them.
Boot Failure
by billhow - 8/3/07 8:24 PM In reply to: Potential winning answers by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Look for a BIOS setting that causes a 1 or 2 second delay before booting the hard disk. If that works or not, I'd get a new drive.
I, too, disagree; but, will add some nuts and bolts......
by davismccarn - 8/3/07 8:53 PM In reply to: Potential winning answers by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The message "disk boot failure" is only found in the ROM BIOS and is displayed when the boot code in the partition table is corrupt (Head 0, Cylinder 0, Sector 0). Errors in the MBR (Head 1, Cylinder 0, Sector 0) will result in "Non System Disk" errors.
If the drive has not spun up and reported as ready to the BIOS during POST, most newer BIOS's will report that no bootable device was found; a different error altogether.
If it were an older system, I would be suspicious of bad capacitors; but, most reputable manufacturers got burned badly by that one in 2000-2002 and are more careful, these days. The same is true of subspec power supplies (though the burn was in the late 1990's) and, unless you have added something like a $600 gaming video adapter, I doubt it to be the cause, either.
What's left is the hard disk drive itself and first, I'll contradict the HP support. Please (!!!!), everybody, enable the SMART reporting in your BIOS. I have been doing data recoveries since 1979 and regularly find that the SMART data in the drive indicated impending doom months before the catastrophe. What bugs me is that Microsoft hasn't built it into Windows. Wouldn't any of you who had a drive fail love to have had a message pop up saying "Your Hard Disk Drive is Failing"? Windows has supported it since Win95!
My suggestion is that you go get http://www.hdtune.com It is a freeware utility to let you inspect the SMART attributes of the drive and to perform a low level error scan. From the way you describe things, I'll bet the only shows a decided pause in the first block during the error scan; but, I'll bet it is there nevertheless.
If you have not already done so, make the recovery CD's now so you can replace the hard disk drive. They don't come with new computers, you have to make them. Back up anything you have done (spreadsheets, documents, pictures, etc.) while you are at it.
After you have done those things, you ought to be able to get a new drive from HP by being cranky about it or, at least when it fails completely, you'll be ready.
As a final note; there is the chance that Spinrite might fix the problem if it is due to a marginal write on the media. Reading the partition table and writing it back may actually fix it; BUT, if it is due to an actual defect in the drive, it will never boot again afterwards so, please, make the recovery CD's and backups before you try it.
Disk Boot Failure
by chillyb9 - 8/9/07 10:06 AM In reply to: Potential winning answers by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
My vote goes to Wolfie2k5. Although many of the replies were excellent, I felt Wolfie2k5's response was the most direct and simple for a regular user. Many of us don't like to impose or prefer to do things ourselves, but I agree that if it's under warranty, the manufacturer should correct the issue, not the end user.
All the suggestions in here are good, but I have one other.
by RotoRooterGuy - 8/3/07 9:29 PM In reply to: Disk boot failure: What is it and what can I do to resolve it by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Two weeks ago when the San Francisco power outage occurred, I suffered a disk boot error of sorts, except the message I got was "unmountable drive" which I will explain below.
Over the years I have got that "disk boot error" message only once. What was causing it was the master boot record [MBR] was corrupt. I replaced it and the disk was fine after that.
So the post that talks about fixing the MBR seems right on in terms of a fix.
The MBR is a small set of instructions on a hard disk that tell the disk how to operate [or boot up]. If the code becomes corrupt, the disk can fail to work or in your case, will give a message about the error.
Now about my problem and precautions I am taking. My error "unmountable drive" was actually an error pertaining to Windows XP not initializing or getting started correctly. What happened with the power outages [there were four on that day] is that the abrupt shut down eventually fried my Windows XP initialization [or startup] instructions. So no matter what I tried I could not get the past the blue screen of death message that said I had an "unmountable drive."
The fix was to put in my original WIN XP operating disk, get a DOS prompt, and enter chkdsk/r and some other codes that told the WIN XP disk to restore ONLY the WinIni files.
To my amazement the process worked and I was able to boot up and everything was back to normal, pre-crash.
But here is my point. One never knows what can happen with these damn computers. The worst though is losing one's data [on my D drive I had 300GB of data that was acting as a backup. From the go figure dept, I had removed that drive to install it in a USB enclosure and it would not work, for some reason the C drive being screwed up also screwed up the D drive. Later I found out it could have been my switch settings, had it on cable select, not master. But I don't think that was the problem].
Anyway, what I suggest is what I am doing now, in terms of backup. I now have two external 500GB hard disks in external enclosures. I also have a third 500GB USB enclosure that has the same data, but I keep that disk in a fireproof safe.
On my C drive I only have my programs and operating system. I have limited my C drive to 160GB so I am not tempted to start storing files on the C drive [if I had a 500GB C drive I could start lazily storing files on it. With only a 160GB drive I can't store files on it because there is no room].
All my videos, data, pictures, music, web pages, graphics and downloaded programs are kept on the USB enclosure drives. That way if I ever suffer another crash, or even a virus attack, my USB drives will be safe, at least safer than if the files were on the C drive.
So in reading your post, guess my main point is that you better back up or transfer the data on the C drive ASAP.
After that is done then you can tinker with all the suggestions given in here. Some of them are very good.
Hard Disk Boot to Laptop Issue
by ramnet - 8/3/07 10:25 PM In reply to: All the suggestions in here are good, but I have one other. by RotoRooterGuyRather than repeat the replies from others also make sure you check these things out.
1. Leaving a USB Memory stick in a USB drive when powered up /down especially if it has not been formatted to run an operating system can sometimes produce a no disk or disk error.
2. Leaving a floppy disk in the floppy drive or CD in the CD Drive also can produce a boot error message
3. The Hard Disk has actually failed .. so this would ideally need to be replaced under warranty.
4. A Corrupt BIOS can also produce strange results so IF its still under warranty I would give it back to the supplier to resolve. Don't make it your problem when such a new product should at least last 12 months.
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