my computer has broke - disk boot failure

[TalkShowHost]

hi all, i hope someone can kindly me me.

I just bought a new case and having moved everything into it it get the following message when i boot up:
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

I have a feeling my motherboard may have be broke but am unsure?

I have tired everything I can think of. Have cleard the CMOs and tried various BIOS settings. i also have an old image of my C: drive that I just restored and still the same problem. I don't think there are any problems with my hard drives as when using norton ghost I can browse the files on them all and they all show up correct in the BIOS. I am just away to do another restore but this time replace the MBR and see if that helps.

Would appreciate any help/advice anyone can offer cause i'm am completely stuck now.

Computer spec below:
Windows XP Pro
DFI Lanparty Ultra D, Opteron 146,
Hiper Type R 580W PSU, Radeon X1800XL

[azzey]

First, make sure there are no CD's or floppies in the drives. Next, please list your partition scheme (including sizes). This was working perfectly fine before?

Try taking everything out of the case and putting it on a non-conductive surface. The case may be shorting out the motherboard.

[crueljustice]

well, dont know if this helps, but i had this exact same problem when i made my last computer.

I was reading throught the manual and it said i should only have 1 of the same thing per ide cable. So if you have a cd drive and a hard drive on the same ribbon, i suggest you just unplug the cd drive and the hdd should work.

I am not shure what your complete setup is (since you didnt post very much information) but just check your jumper settings on your hard drive and on your cd/dvd drive. and make sure you only have hard drives connected on one cable and cd/dvd drives on the other. if you want both of them on the same cable you will probably have to do "Cable select" instead of master and slave.
HOPE THAT HELPS :)

also, azzey's suggestion also sounds like a probable cause of your problem.

[TalkShowHost]

many thanks for the suggestions - the shorting out seems like it could potentially be the problem but the thing is my computer posts fine, everything shows up in the BIOs is just when is starts to boot up windows.

Did not chnage any jumper settings or anything when i moved everything into the new case just plugged it all tin hen this.....I have also tried booting with only the hard drive plugged in and no luck and nothing in any of the drives.

Have four hard drives but only have the one where windows is installed hooked in at the moment which is 300GB partitioned into windows part of 12GB and then the rest is of various sizes that I can't remember off hand.

i laso just did the restore MBR option with norton and this hasn't changed anything.

if you need any more information which may be relevant please ask.

could it be a hradware problem of some sort (only thing it could be is PSU or m/board or hard drive but they all appear to be working fine and unfortunately I have no means of testing each item individually.

i'm off to unplug everything now.

[sassie05]

i'm off to unplug everything now.
Does this mean you're doing as Azzey suggested?

[TalkShowHost]

Does this mean you're doing as Azzey suggested?

i just have but is was doing the asame thing but I have now changed the SATA connector the HD is plugged into and the motherboard and have now booted into windows. :D

O must have damaged a connector when i moved parts arounf or something. many thanks for the help guys.

[Sylvander]

1. See Troubleshooting Boot-Time Error Messages (http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/sys/booterr.htm) and click on the error warning in the left-hand menu = "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press Enter", which takes you to "No boot device".

2. Then click "Troubleshoot Hard Disk Drive" to go to
There is an apparent failure of the hard disk; the hard disk is not bootable nor accessible at all (http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/hdd/fail_Failure.htm).
Read the advice there regarding:
a. Can the BIOS see the drive; is "Dynamic Auto-detection" [Auto in the BIOS Setup] producing a display during POST that shows the HDD being correctly detected and configured?
b. The HDD IS partitioned and formatted, right?
c. See whether other programs can see the HDD. There are a number that can do this.
My favourites would be...
KILLDISK [Bootable floppy? Displays the drive and its partition arangement]
Smart Boot Manager (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41498)
[Bootable floppy. Displays bootable drives found, and tries to boot the one you choose. Drive ok if it is seen]
Emergency Boot CD (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41485)
[Bootable CD includes programs that can TEST the HDD, BROWSE files on partitions (drive ok if it can do this), write a generic MBR, SCAN/FIX file systems on partitions, create NT/2000/XP boot floppy to get you into Windows]

Oops, post #6 must have been posted whilst I was composing mine. :o

[sassie05]

Thanks for replying with the outcome of your results.