Resolved Disk boot failure trying to install Windows 7

Hi all, I am trying to install Win7 onto my PC, I wish to keep XP on my computer so I added a second hard drive for Win7. The problem is, half way into the installation win7 informed me it was not possible to install to the chosen drive so I canceled the installation. My problem now is I cannot boot into XP, at start up I get the message "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter.â€


I can load XP's recovery concel and restore the MBR I also ran chkdsk all to know avail, at start up I keep geting the above message. At this stage I just want to get back into XP, any ideas.?

 

try to check your IDE cable or SATA cable and also the Power supply of them.

 

It would help if you gave more details of your machine, size of HDs, slave or master, etc.
Which Windows 7, Pro, Home, 32 or 64 bit?
Roger

 

Not the problem

I have done as you suggested and the is not the problem, thanks.

 

More detail

I am trying to install Win7 to a slave drive 160GB
PC P4 Memory 2GB
The main problem is , for the moment I wish to abort installing Win7 and just boot back into XP but I cannot.
As it stands if I let the PC boot without a system disk I get the message Disk boot failure insert system disk when I insert the Win7 disk it picks up where it left off. Any ideas.?

 

Did you change the Bootable HD in Bios? Win7 likely slapped it's own MBR onto the "Bootable HD" per Bios. If so, W7 MBR code is finding XP code on the drive, not it's own W7 code.

Use to be, the only reason you'd see BIOS error msg say "MBR failure" is when the MBR is missing (or has wrong) two bytes at the end of the MBR, which should be X'55AA'. Otherwise the BIOS code merely turns control over to whatever is in the MBR.
It's possible that the new Win 7 MBR code can do more if it doesn't like the looks of the of the bootup code off the HD. But up to XP, only BIOS would be able to distinquish it wasn't a "valid MBR" by those missing bytes. If not found by Bios.. you got the error msg & the big blue screen.
If MBR code, or partition table is bad - you get hung with the big black screen (again, up to XP this was true)

I'm working on a similar problem. My XP system died, and I have a clobbered (bad) MBR on my old XP HD. My new PC w/Window 7 is preventing me from restoring my XP MBR. Either as only HD or as a second HD. Right now, I'm looking for an XP CD/DVD image so I can do a stand alone boot and use many HD edit or MBR repair tools that won't run on Win7. (haven't found one yet)

Also, I've never tried installing anything to a 'slave' drive (Master/slave is on the older IDE drives but not on SATA drives, as my own SATA drives don't use 'master/slave' jumpers.). When I installed any system, I've done it the old fashioned way - physically remove the old drive, and replace with the 'new' one to be installed. There's no chance your drives would get the wrong MBR if they're not hooked up.

Bob

 

Thanks I think you could be right. I will let you know if I make any progress.

 

Thanks for the detailed reply. I solved the problem by unplugging one hard drive and installing Win7
I then unplugged the drive with Win7, plugged in the second drive and installed Win XP.
Windows will now boot from drive C. If you want to boot from the second drive go into your BIOS and change the first boot to drive 1, save and exit and you should boot from your second drive. A bit convoluted I know but it worked. Final point, my two drives are IDE and you might not have the same problem with a SATA drive. Finally before you do anything BACKUP. Bye for now.