DISK BOOT FAILURE 2

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Guest

I start up my computer and it will say Verifying DMI Pool
Date and then it will say "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT
SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"....I can go into the maual
setup and i do not have the floppy disk and the floppy
disk hard drive is broken...there is nothing else i can
think of to get my computer back up and running... and
also i just bought a new graphics card which i paid 400$
for....Please help!
 
-----Original Message-----
I start up my computer and it will say Verifying DMI Pool
Date and then it will say "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT
SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"....I can go into the maual
setup and i do not have the floppy disk and the floppy
disk hard drive is broken...there is nothing else i can
think of to get my computer back up and running... and
also i just bought a new graphics card which i paid 400$
for....Please help!
Click to expand...

This is a BIOS message indicating it is unable to boot. It
is definately a hardware problem. It could be minor, but
it probably indicates a failing hard disk.

First, see if the BIOS detects the drive at all. If your
HD detection is Auto, see if the drive is even detected.
Next, get some diagnostics for the drive. I know Maxtor
and Western Digital have utilities for this. Unfortunatly
you will need a working floppy drive for this. You will
need to see if the drive is failing, and if so, there isn't
a whole lot you can do other than perhaps RMA if it is
still under warranty. It could be a loose cable or
something minor. Definately check the connections and
verify the cable isn't bad. Good Luck.
 
I can go into the maual
setup and i do not have the floppy disk and the floppy
disk hard drive is broken.
Click to expand...

It could be an mbr problem, so first, from the repair console, try "fixmbr".
Always worth a try.

And no matter what, _get another floppy disk drive_ -- if you can afford $400
for a graphics card, you can afford $20-30 for a disk drive. You should
_never_ be without a floppy drive. It's often the only way you can boot when
the HD or the OS cracks up.

Of course, you need some bootable diskettes, too - you should have at least
the W2K setup (emergency) diskettes that you create with W2K (read the
Help); _and_ a DOS bootable, plus a utilities disk or two, because many very
useful utilities and diagnostics will run just fine with DOS, or even need
DOS. You can get all this via another machine while your machine is not
working. If a friend has W2k, use it to build your W2K setup (emergency)
diskettes; they are not machine specific. Download a DOS boot diskette;
google "dos boot disk", and you'll find several sources. You can also find
the utilities you need, but that may take a little more work. :-)

For the rest, Eric's post has good advice. BTW, if the HD is failing, you can
get a nice big HD for much less than you paid for the graphics card (a 120GB
Maxtor is available locally for about $180Can --> $135US, and that's not the
lowest price). And if the old one is failing, get a new HD immediately - even
if you can repair the old one, you'll have just a few good boots left before
it fails completely, and you'll want to get data off it onto the new drive.
Make the old drive a slave, install W2K on the new drive, reboot, and copy
stuff from the old drive.

HTH&GL
 
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