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RE: boot disk fail

PoWeR UsEr — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 23:39:31 GMT

ok i cant think of anything else to do so i am going to buy a new motherboard and HDD, wanted too anyway and this has just given me a reason;)

so unless anyone else has anymore tips on trying to fix this i was looking at getting the Asus P5K Premium WiFi AP and a Samsung Spinpoint F1. good choice?

thanks again :)

RE: boot disk fail

PoWeR UsEr — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:48:58 GMT

shouldnt be, its not that old.
Trust 570W and it was about £40
was bought at the same time as the mobo
thanks

RE: boot disk fail

EdP — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:01:39 GMT

PSU flakey?

RE: boot disk fail

PoWeR UsEr — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:51:13 GMT

by flashing i did mean just resetting it, using the jumper pins, not reinstalling it. i apologize for the confusion
i know better than to update for no reason.:P
anyway i have tried all of the above to no avail. diskcheck reported no problems.
no idea what to do, looks like i will be ordering a new mobo then, i need my computer back.

cheers:)

Edit//
no changes were made to the system at all when the problem occurred,uninstalled Ubuntu and still managed 2 clean restarts before the problem arose so i dont think it was that which has caused this. the system has been overclocked for months with no problems, and nothing else to note.

RE: boot disk fail

Bruce R — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:44:15 GMT

I agree with EdP, avoid BIOS Upgrades unless you are sure that they are needed. However, if you have been changing drives and booting OSs around, the BIOS can simply get confused and even result in no operating system found messages. :)
So, try going in to the BIOS and resetting to fail-safe defaults and perform a couple of Restarts from cold, as that will often sort it out. THEN you can re-establish all your desired BIOS settings and re-save them ? ;)

RE: boot disk fail

EdP — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:58:44 GMT

Aaaargh! There was absolutely [b]NO[/b] need to reflash the bios each time you installed an Operating System!

You should always be very reluctant to reflash any motherboard's bios and only ever do it if a specific support function you need is missing. Just because the motherboard manufacturer has released a newer bios doesn't mean you need to install it. Read the manufacturer's notes and only do it if they recommend it as [b]essential[/b]. Often the newer bios will just add another language support or something equally trivial.

Once you have done it successfully it will be there for ever (well at least until your motherboard wears out). You will know if you failed to reflash it successfully as you will have a totally dead system, but it MAY be possible to use the bios recovery image to restore your original bios.

Have you done something else you haven't mentioned like trying to overclock your system?

RE: boot disk fail

Phitore — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:26:22 GMT

Have you run chkdsk on the drive?
Check the cables are in properly.
Try installing on your other HDD.

RE: boot disk fail

PoWeR UsEr — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 10:17:42 GMT

i flashed the bios each time a reinstalled.
yes i got this bios from the asus website under my motherboard's selection.

cheers

RE: boot disk fail

EdP — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 08:04:11 GMT

Why did you reflash the bios, and why did you do it multiple times!!!!!!?
Are you SURE that you have used the correct bios for your motherboard?

Health Warning -- each time you reflash a bios there is a finite risk of totally screwing your system.

RE: boot disk fail

PoWeR UsEr — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 01:04:00 GMT

ok, the tail has a twist, i have reinstalled vista twice, flashed the bios numerous times and reset almost everything, it still fails to boot on occasion, personally i think it is a motherboard or hard drive problem, but it aint software that's for sure.
any ideas? i think i will be buying a new motherboard and HDD by the looks of things.

Thanks for any replies :D

RE: boot disk fail

EdP — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:50:32 GMT

That'll teach you to use Grub! I've never used it since SUSE totally screwed up a dual boot a few years ago.

Seriously, I always prefer to change the Vista boot ini as that is my primary OS. Anyway, its still pretty peasy if you have the original Vista DVD.

Pop the disk in the drive and turn on the pc. When you see the 'Install Now' screen, click the 'Repair your Computer' link at the bottom of the screen. This SHOULD get you to the System Recovery Options screen. Click Startup Repair -- this does the same as a fix MBR in XP and previous dos based windows. If you still can't get going then you have slightly bigger problems and will need to do a Systems Restore - assuming you have some restore points. If all this doesn't work, then scream, kick and say bl***dy L*n*x!

Good Luck!

RE: boot disk fail

blacklion1725 — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:16:09 GMT

Hell mate, when you say you tried the windows cd, did you try as per this link?

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Vista+Bootloader+from+the+DVD

That approach has worked for me before after a similar experience

If not another post recently mentioned VistaBootPro which may also help in your case

http://www.vistabootpro.org/

RE: boot disk fail

PoWeR UsEr — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:41:30 GMT

using vista home i'm affraid.
please someone tell me i dont need to reinstall

RE: boot disk fail

EdP — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:03:59 GMT

Probably peasy if you have xp, just use the old dos trick to get rid of boot viruses. [url=http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=292614] Link to fix[/url]

boot disk fail

PoWeR UsEr — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:54:43 GMT

anyone know how to replace a boot loader? i think that's the problem anyway.
i have no idea what to do:( and i have tried the windows CD
i think the problem was caused when i uninstalled ubuntu from another HDD then formatted it, restarted the computer and all was fine but after turning it off for the night i cannot get it to boot.
any ideas?

thanks