Computer help, please.

FilmMakerr

FilmMakerr

Veteran
As some of you know, I recently purchased a PC.

Now, today I plugged it in, to start it, before I go on, I must tell you I know not much about computers, this is what happened.

When I turn on the PC, it loads and on the dark screen it says:

"Disk boot failure, Insert system disk and press Enter"

So I tried entering my WinXp Pro 64bit Cd in, when I did, this is what happened, it loaded, first it gave me the option to "Press F6 to install 3rd party' I never did do that, then:

- Set up windows now
-Repair windows
-quit without repairing windows.

I chose to set up windows then:

"Set up did not find an Hard Disk drive installed on yout computer"

'Make sure one hard disks drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer, and that any disk related hardware configuration is correct, this may invoice running a manufactur supplied diagnosis"

-------------

And that came out everytime, I also tried the other 4 CD's that I got with the computer.

-Sapphire
-A82-SLI Series Mother board support CD
-DVD+R/RW
-Power producer.


That is all I got with the pc, the winxp I bought seperate, anyone know what I have to do/
 
Reboot the computer. As it is booting, press the Del(ete) key, F2, or F1 -- whichever key your machine uses to enter the BIOS setup. There should be prompt telling you which...somewhere on the screen...it may go by very quickly, so you might have to try a few times to get the timing right. PITA, yes?

Anyway, usually in the first screen of the BIOS setup (sometimes the second), there will be a Hard Drive section saying what you have installed.

Chances are, at the moment, it won't see any of them.

Hopefully, there will be instructions on that screen..somewhere...telling you how to have the machine auto-detect your hard drive. Do that.

If it doesn't find a hard drive, power down and check the drive connections, power and data. Make sure you didn't jam the flat cable in backwards. Not likely, but possible. Same with the power...but if *that* was in backwards, you'd smell the smoke already.

If everything looks good, and you can see/feel that power is getting to the hard drive (the light flashes on the front of the machine...a little green LED, most likely, but maybe red...when you first power up), then you probably have a dead hard drive.

Or really really broken system. At which point, you'd be better off having someone local look at it...the store where you purchased it, if applicable.
 
For a start what hdd's does it have? and how are they configured. eg ide hdds? sata hdds? how many hdds?

If they are IDE genjerdens solution should find the answer. Its in the standard set up tab of the CMOS. auto detect hdd.

If its a single or two sata hdd running normally. Youll need to select Advanced Tab and select (cant remember without looking) boot order? (it will be first option on the list... choose scsi, then go to boot sequence and choose SATA .

If its dual SATA hdd in a raid config then choose boot order (sorry name isnt on top of my head) SCSI and boot sequence? anyway put it on RAID.

If its raid make sure during the initial startup phase you see your raid load up...
 
Oh. Yeah. Forgot about THAT headache possibility. :)

That's why I always have an IDE boot drive, and run the SATAs (as an array or not) as the secondary or greater.

Same for my strictly IDE machine...a bare boot, a RAID0, and a RAID1. Gets me into the OS before I have to deal with other problems. ;-)
 
If ncje's suggestion doesn't work--that is, there are no SCSI/RAID boot options in the BIOS--you'll need to press F6 to install 3rd party drivers. Look for a floppy with your (Promise is what I have, insert mfr name here) SATA drivers and install those. I'm assuming you have an SATA hdd as your boot drive. Which is no problem, SATA is much faster than IDE. You just need to locate your driver disk.
 
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