Boot Disk Failure. Insert System Disk....

My daughter was burning a disk on the computer when it froze up on her. She rebooted and was given the error above. She called me immediately and I've been in a tizzy ever since.

Here's what I've tried so far:

Changed the boot sequence but that didn't help.

Inserted my XP CD and attempted a Repair installation. I get left at the C:\> prompt and anything I type I get a "bad command or file name ". DIR won't even work. I also received the message "cannot find the system drive ".

I tried a full XP install but I am stopped with the message "windows has been shut down to prevent damage..... "

I just know this isn't good. I'm feeling rather ill right now as all my company files and accounting software are on this computer and it's payroll day tomorrow.

If anyone can help I'd really appreciate it.

 

Hi Pam!

If you have another computer (and apparently you do ) you can make a "Bootloader Floppy" by formatting a floppy and copying the following three files to it:

NTLDR
NTDETECT.COM
BOOT.INI

They're all located on the root and you'll need to "Show all files" to see them. Place that boot floppy in the ailing box and try booting. It should get you all the way into Windows IF there is no serious drive problem.

Incidentally, the machine that you make the floppy on should be of the same configuration as the other one. I mean NT (XP) based and the OS located on the same partition number. If not, either edit the boot.ini accordingly, or post back and I'll make a floppy for you and ftp it to my site for you to download.

If's it's a DOS based system (win9*) post back for more.

 

PLansdowne

If the Ideas by Steve R Jones and surferdude2 don't work out you may want to try and see if knoppix at http://www.knoppix.com/ will let you see and possibly [ knoppix will let you burn to a cd ] recover the files..

purplemtn

 

Surferdude2 I can't slave it to this machine - I'm on a P166 running Win95. Could you please make the bootable floppy for me?

Purplemtn I'll take a look, thanks.

 

Bootloader Floppy Creator for XP

Download that to your Desktop. Place a blank floppy in your drive and double click the file.

It should create the necessary bootloader floppy to use for booting the ailing machine.

Good luck.

 

Thanks! I'll be back shortly with the results!

 

I'm getting an error writing to the diskette. I've tried every diskette I have and no go. I've got a burner on this thing. Can you change the batch file to make a bootable CD (F:\)?

 

I've just switched it but I'm going to have to change the command?

 

You can try this other link from Abraxas that makes a similar floppy. It's targeted for XP Pro but will do for Home as well.

http://www.svrops.com/svrops/downloads/zipfiles/xpprobt.exe

You can run that one directly from the download link if you like, without downloading it. Either way.

It'll be for partition one only and will need to be edited (boot.ini file) to use for booting the second partition, if necessary.

If that doesn't work I'll find you a CD image.

 

I cna't get one single floppy to work. I'm getting errors with this program as well.

 

Maybe be a problem relating to Win95 compatibility.

Let's try the CD just for laughs.

It's linked in this earlier thread:

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?p=194750#post194750

You may end up having to create the floppy on an XP box if you can impose on some friend with same.

 

Pam, I can mail you one of these floppies but the payroll is going to be late.

This may not solve your problem so you must be prepared to face that issue.

 

Thanks for sticking it out with me.

I was able to use the boot cd but each time I select "previous operating system on C:\ I get the following error:

Error accessing boot sector file
Mulit(0)Disk(0)Fdisk(0)\Bootsect.dos

 

I'm sorry but I didn't create that iso image and don't know what to say about that error. It seems you may be choosing the wrong option when the iso is copied to the CD. It could just be that it also has to be performed on a XP system.

Too bad you don't have easy access to an XP machine for making the boot floppy. That would be so easy.

If the information on the drive is critical, and this bootloader substitution floppy doesn't provide you with any relief, it would seem likely that your HD may have failed. You would want to try some recovery methods then of course.

One method would be to slave the drive to a healthy system, as has been suggested by Steve, and try to gain access. That failing, it might be possible to use a boot floppy created by one of the popular imaging softwares and do a bit-copy of the drive. Then transport that bit copy to a working computer and try to extract files from it using the software that created the image.

I'm still hoping you can get the floppy made so it will tell us if the drive is going to be accessable.

BTW, there is a freeware download file that you may want to try. It's a NTFS DOS boot disk that is offered by Winternals. Google for it. It will "Read only" access to a NTFS file system from the command line. You can copy files from the drive using it. Just another option to consider later.

 

PLansdowne

This may help

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q154733/

purplemtn

 

The bootable CD is working (I think). I'm given the option to start in safe mode etc but as soon as I choose which operating system I'd like to start (previous operating system on C:\) I get that error message. My other options are to choose NT-1st partition, NT- 2nd partion.......

How the heck could this have happened?

 

Hey, that sounds good. Choose NT first partition!

If no joy, reboot and choose NT second.

 

Okay, I'll give it a shot. Back in a sec.

 

No go. Here's the error:

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration probelm. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.


Thanks for the suggestion Purplemtn but I can't even get to a prompt.