PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable

D

djjones69

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Hey peeps,


Can't find any threads with info about my problem so here goes;

Recently my laptop didnt boot up after not being used for a couple of days. The specifics are below (I think it overheated but i'm not sure how to fix or even check what is wrong).


After pressing the power button;

Begins to boot as normal, then;

Initializing MDA. Press Ctrl+Alt+B

next screen;

Argon PXE boot agent v2.01 (BIOS integrated)
(C) Copyright 2002 Argon Technology Corporation
(C) Copyright 2000 3COM Corporation
All rights reserved

Pre-boot execution environment (PXE)
(C) Copyright 1999 Latel Corporation
All rights reserved

then a few seconds later;

PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable

next screen;

Operating system not found

The internal hard drive seems to be the problem as it is making a fairly loud noise. I tried to use the "quick-restore system recovery CD" to see what happened;

The CD loads up and a couple of option windows load up asking for language etc and then as another window seems to be loading;

eject!

and the cd ejects and the loop runs again from the top. ending with media test failure, check cable and then Operating system not found.

Is there anyway I can check that it is just the hard drive that is faulty as I'm willing to buy a new internal hard drive but don't really want to go to the expense of spending much more.


Cheers


Dan

oh yeah,

it's a Compaq Presario 2100 with windows xp home operating system (or at least it did have).

If you need any more info please just ask

Dan
 
first of all PXE stands for Pre eXecutable Environment. it basically enables the laptop to boot from a server on a network. as i assume you are attempting to boot from the laptops hard disk rather that the network just into the BIOS and set the boot order to boot from HDD.

if it still doesn't boot then we'll take it from there.

J
 
Ntdetect failed during PXE boot

Hello There,
Good Day,

This is Ahmed Mounir from London.

I've been working around with microsoft RIS and how to boot an ERD cd image via PXE boot. I did setup the RIS server successfully and created a windows xp sp2 image then i copied \i386 folder from the ERD image to the \i386 folder of the RIS image. In addition,i created a templates folder under the newly copied \i386 folder and i added these files in it : startrom.com , ntdetect.com , ristndrd.sif , winnt.sif and setupldr.exe which later i renamed it to ntldr and these files was took from a folder called OSChooser. so my folders structure for RIS deployment looks like this :

\\RemoteInstall\Setup\English\Images\ERD\i386\templates

My dhcp server is the same as RIS server so i had to add an 060 scope option with pxeclient value string in addition to 066,067 and 043 options.

However,when i turned on one of my client machines it booted successfully from the network and received an ip address. it also detected my tftp server for downloading the image and i saw a statement states " Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration" and suddenly its stopped for a while then a Ntdetect failed message appeared. I checked the tftp log file results and i found "Timeout error sending ntdetect.com , 0 bytes". i felt that ntdetect.com file is corrupted. Anyways, i found another one in windows xp cd and i copied and pasted it in the tftp root directory but the problem still persist.

Please i am requesting help in this issue as well as any new ideas.

A friendly tip : you can use startrom.n12 instead of startrom.com to avoid F12 prompting. ;).

Thanks

Regards,

Ahmed
 
Last edited:
Ahmed,

Your hijacking someone elses thread, can you please start a new one.

Welcome to PCR.
 
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