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4.6

Random intermittent book disk failure with new system

Asked by djsq in General Computer Systems

Tags: boot, disk, failure



I have just built a new computer using AMD 2500XP+, leadtek nForce2 chipset, western digital 120gb HDD. When I restart my computer, sometimes it will boot and other times it will display the message "BOOT DISK FAILURE: Please insert system disk". It's not an old HDD so the head shouldn't be stuck and making the boot sequence longer for it to spin-up doesn't make a difference. It isn't a problem with just cold rebooting only. It seems to be basically random. Whats more it does this even if a bootable CD is in the CDROM.

A weird thing is I suspected it might be the CDROM(as this is old) so I unplugged that. Now I get an intermittent error saying ntodldr is missing or corrupt. I thought at first that this is just because the ording of the devices has changed and so the boot.ini was out of date, but sometimes it does boot into XP so it can't be that.

I've tried fixmbr, scanning for errors, repairing, reinstalling, swapping ide/eide cables, reseting the bios, flashing the bios, changing various bios settings including the boot order. No luck.

Other information that may  be of use. The disk is formatted NTFS. The HDD is primary master on the on the eide, and CDROM was primary master on the secondary controller. The motherboard also has a SATA raid controller which I'm not using. The memory is 2x256mb generic which I've tested with memtest86. The power supply is new.

If I have to replace a bit or take it back I will but I'd like to be sure that is what the problem is first so any help would be appreciated.
[+][-]03/06/04 06:58 AM, ID: 10531066Accepted Solution

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Zone: General Computer Systems
Tags: boot, disk, failure
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Solution Provided By: StealthMullet
Participating Experts: 3
Solution Grade: C
 
[+][-]03/05/04 05:48 AM, ID: 10522447Expert Comment

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[+][-]03/05/04 09:39 AM, ID: 10524895Expert Comment

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[+][-]03/05/04 03:51 PM, ID: 10528236Author Comment

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[+][-]03/05/04 07:02 PM, ID: 10529127Assisted Solution

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[+][-]03/05/04 08:39 PM, ID: 10529505Author Comment

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[+][-]03/05/04 08:44 PM, ID: 10529516Expert Comment

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[+][-]03/06/04 04:10 AM, ID: 10530572Author Comment

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[+][-]03/06/04 07:17 AM, ID: 10531135Assisted Solution

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[+][-]03/06/04 10:54 PM, ID: 10534035Author Comment

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[+][-]03/06/04 10:56 PM, ID: 10534040Author Comment

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[+][-]03/06/04 11:26 PM, ID: 10534087Author Comment

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[+][-]03/07/04 05:11 AM, ID: 10534630Expert Comment

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[+][-]03/07/04 05:56 PM, ID: 10537587Author Comment

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