Disk Boot Failure

[Praetorian]

Well, today I decided to put in an 3Com EtherLink III ISA card to get some data off my old 100mhz computer (floppy on it doesn't work and don't have Cd-Rom) that I needed. I start it up and get and error that says "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk And Press Enter." I made sure the IDE cables were tightly fitted onto the motherboard and into to the HDD. The red line is facing the power connection. And in the BIOS I can't get it to find either of my 2 HDD's.

I had a relative (MCSE certified) try to fix it a few months ago. He didn't really have too much time to look at it and gave it back. Said he didn't connect all the cables back where they were. I thought I put them in the right places (haven't opened this machine in 6 months and forgot everything about it) but I'm not sure. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[This message has been edited by Praetorian (edited 07-21-2001).]

[NDC]

Make sure the the hard disks are connected to IDE 0.

After you've done the above and the system still fails to boot, go to BIOS FEATURES and set the BOOT SEQUENCE to show C: as the first letter in the sequence.

If the above still fails to boot the hard disk, check to make sure the bootable hard disk is set as MASTER and the second hard disk as SLAVE.

Also check in the BIOS to make sure the IDE channels are set to AUTO, not NONE. After you make sure they're set to AUTO, select the BIOS feature that says AUTO DETECT HARD DRIVE and see if the hard disks are detected...

[Mr. NoOne]

It could also be that your onboard IDE controller got fried...

Did you discharge yourself from any static electricity?

Also one of the cables could have a tear somewhere...

[Praetorian]

No. I didn't fry my onboard IDE controler. Just 30 seconds ago I got it to detect my HDD but its a little messed up. When I start the computer it says

Detecting HDD Primary Master ...W@C.

Then it just hangs. I have a Western Digital Caviar but for some reason it displays that. Never did before. Also I can only have my BIOS detect my HDD once. Then it just shows nothing and I have to totaly power down and turn it back on 30 seconds later. I could really use some more advice.

**Update**- I left it on while it was hanging and the brought up the an error that said Primary master hard disk fail. And it is detecting my other HDD with nothing on it and not the one with Windows 98.

[This message has been edited by Praetorian (edited 07-22-2001).]

[TOAD6147]

Get ahold of a hdd utility from WD and boot from their disk to check it's health.
___________________________________________
We suggest this strategy to check the condition of a drive:
Run the diagnostic within Data Lifeguard Tools to scan any Western Digital EIDE hard drive that you suspect is faulty.
If the diagnostic does not report any errors, then the problem lies elsewhere. Possible sources for the problem could be the data cable, your controller, the motherboard, the BIOS. If you are still unable to access files on the hard drive, then you may have to reinstall the operating system and your program applications. In this case, you should erase the drive completely by having the diagnostic write zeros across the drive. Should this be necessary, all data will be lost.
If the diagnostic reports errors, have it attempt to repair the drive and rescan the drive to verify it is defect-free. If errors still occur following the repair attempt, the drive is defective and should be returned to Western Digital provided it is still under warranty. The diagnostic will report an error code if the drive is defective. Make note of this error code as it is required when returning the drive. In the event it cannot detect the drive, it will not return an error code. In this case, the error code is not required.
Data Lifeguard Tools is available from the Drives section of our Software Library. You can also download the utility by clicking the link below.
http://www.wdc.com/service/ftp/dlgtools/dlgdiag.zip (zip file)

[Mr. NoOne]

Have you tried with another hard drive (one you are sure works), if the same thing happens then you know it was not the Western Digital hard drive....

You could also try that hard drive on another computer and see if it works...

[mds]

If all your tring to do is access info. off the old computer's hard drive- then remove the nic card and all the other cards except vid. card. Then just hook up the drive with the hard drive you need infor off of as a master. Go into bio's and make sure it detects the hard drive ok- be sure to save changes when exiting. reboot and see if it comes up. If it does & if it has windoze on it use direct connet with a serial cable to transfer data.You said the red line was faceing the power connector on the drive but did you make sure it is pluged on the mobo ok not backwards or bent pins- Like NDC said make sure it's in IDE 0. Can you here the drive spin up when you power on, if not try another power connector. If it does not make the spinning up noise when you power up it might be a bad drive or power supply going bad you said your floppy doesn't work ? Does it get power ok?Just a few idea's ^^

[Praetorian]

I got it to boot up by removing my 2nd HDD and manualy inputing the info for the Primary Master. Now this is my biggest problem. Remember how I said this computer has problems and most of the cables weren't connected? Well, also some of the cables were taken out to build my Mom's computer. I have no serial ports, bad paralell ports, and a bad floppy drive controler. I put in a cd-rom drive to load the drivers for my vid and network cards. I can't access it though. MSCDEX.exe is still using the old drivers for my 24x Cd-Rom (thats in my Mom's comp) and I need to change it to use the current one. If someone is willing to help me get through this e-mail me at Maverick7241@aol.com. I'll talk to you.