PC Not booting up

fifeken

My home PC has packed in and I'd appreciate any help. When I boot up I get a message:

"Primary Master HDD S.M.A.R.T. capability .... Disabled

Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM ! Failure ...
A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart."

I understand the 2nd bit is 'cos I don't have a bootable disk in the CD drive but what can I do to fix the hard drive problem. I've pulled out and re-seated the connectors on the HD and the motherboard and checked the PSU is OK but that's about the limit of my knowledge.

Any ideas appreciated.

Exo

Enter the BIOS setup and ensure the hard drive is still recognised with the full capacity shown.
Check that the drive boot order is still correct.
If your saved settings of the boot order has been lost, then it may indicate the motherboard battery is failing.

Which operating system are you using and do you have the installation disc.
Your hard drive may have a corrupt MBR (master boot record) that needs replacing.

fifeken

Exo,
Thanks for the info. I have been into the BIOS and the drive is still recognised although I can't remember what the capacity figures were. Boot order looks OK - HD0 then CD.
I'm running Windows XP and do not have the installation disc. If it is the MBR what else can I do? Any other ideas or things to try?

Exo

Normally you use the recovery console via the XP disc.

I understand that you can use a Windows 98 boot disk and at the A:>prompt, type
fdisk /mbr
Never done it hat way myself but I have been assured it does work.

You can get a Windows boot disk from here. I suggest using the ME version.
http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml

If you do not have a floppy drive, you can get a ISO image to burn to CD/DVD disc.
http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/iso.html

If you do not have any ISO burning software, then this free one is very good.
http://www.cdburnerxp.se/

Money_Grabber13579

Does it start in safe mode? When you turn it on, press F8 until you get an options screen and then select safe mode. If your using xp though you don't need a recovery disk and you can restore back to the last time it worked from the setup menu.

fifeken

Exo,
Thanks again. If I get the ME boot disk as you suggest can I still use the fdisk command or does this have to be done with the Win98 boot disk?
If I get the ME one I can boot up, but how do I fix the original problem?

turbobob

You could download a linux live CD like Ubuntu and boot from that. If the hard drive is still readable, this should allow you to back up your data to another device. You can then attempt to fix the MBR.

The Ultimate Boot CD http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ has a variety of programs on it some of which may be useful, depending on what hardware you are using. I managed to fix an unbootable PC before simply by using a Seagate diagnostic utility (with a Seagate/Maxtor hard drive) which was included on that CD.

fifeken

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

Does it start in safe mode? When you turn it on, press F8 until you get an options screen and then select safe mode. If your using xp though you don't need a recovery disk and you can restore back to the last time it worked from the setup menu.

I never tried that - my thought process was that it wasn't getting as far as it would need to to go into safe mode. I'll try it when I get home (at work just now).

Exo

The Windows ME version is fine. I tend to use this (or did) as it allowed large drives with its FDISK DOS version.
Assuming the MBR is the problem, then fdisk /mbr should work OK
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=315224

You just boot from the boot disk and at the A:\>prompt type
fdisk /mbr
then press Enter

Antispam

Is it an old computer and HD. They do tend to fail after 3-4 years HD's sometimes you can be lucky and get it working for longer. I had a Dell HD (30 months old) have problem you mentioned above and bios couldn't detect what HD it was. I ended up getting another old HD in, fortunately no important data lost

fifeken

I'm off work now until next Tuesday night. If I have any luck at home with your ideas I'll let you know - otherwise I'll probably be back here with more questions then. Thanks all.