1 Topic by Mashy

  • Mashy
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  • Registered: 2009-08-13
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Topic: BIOS says "DISK BOOT FAILURE"

I've installed windows 7 on my test computer and wanted to delete the xp partition to free space for xp, I thought that once i deleted a partition, its space woiuld be put into another partition so I just deleted the Xp partition in Gparted, but now, when I try to boot on into the harddrive it says " DISK BOOT FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISK TO CONITNUE" i know that the HDD has not died because gparted reconises is perfectly, but what is stopping the BIOS to boot into the harddrive?

Thanks
Mashy

2 Reply by class413

  • class413
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Re: BIOS says "DISK BOOT FAILURE"

Obviously this is a failure of the boot up process, not a hardware failure. It seems that the deletion of the xp partition (normally the first of the hard drive, or the second in case of any recovery partition) changed the numbering of the partitions, so the bootloader doesn't find the right files to boot.

In the case of xp this problem was usually solved by booting the "recovery console" from the xp install cd and using some commands from the command line (Fixboot, Bootcfg, Fixmbr). However, I don't know how this applies to win 7. I guess it must be somehow similar. See the following links:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=720866
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/R … om+the+DVD

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

3 Reply by cmdr

  • cmdr
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Re: BIOS says "DISK BOOT FAILURE"

Hello Mashy,
you installed Windows 7 on a previously flawless booting Win XP system to a new partition ?  You booted Win 7 after installation and it "integrated" Win XP to its bootmanager menu (dual boot) ?  And then you used "GParted" ? Or is my assumed sequence wrong ? Correct it, please.

If you install a newer version of Windows, the older version is preserved, if you don't agree to delete it at once. This means, that the new bootmanager ("bootmgr") and a few helper files inevitably are copied to the already booting Win XP partition, because otherwise the latter looses its drive letter C: , which is thousands of times contained in Registry. Consequently, Win XP wouldn't  boot anymore. Therefore Win XP partition is "active" (bootflag) for Windows 7, too. If you delete the "active" partition along with Windows 7 bootmanager, how should it boot ? Another point is, that Windows 7 has got driveletter D: .  You NEED a (small) first primary partition ( C: ) for the bootprocess with the necessary Windows 7 boot files ... or a Linux bootmanager like "Grub" or "Grub4dos" on this small first partition (with a Windows filesystem, e.g FAT, otherwise it's NOT visible for Windows and gets no driveletter). Perhaps the simplest way is to reinstall Windows 7 as single operation system on the blank harddisk.

Regards
cmdr

4 Reply by mariajones

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  • Registered: 2009-09-15
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Re: BIOS says "DISK BOOT FAILURE"

Hello
           I read your thread.If your cmos is unable to detect your hd, maybe it has a loose wiring or else you have to replace it... but if i were you, i will try to connect your hd to other computer for you to see if it is still working... otherwise, you have to buy a new one... with regards to your files in the hd, you can use softwares that can recover files from accidentally deleted it, format, or even crashed hd... but based on my experience, i wasn't able to recover 100% of all the files...

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