Disk boot failures (Vista)

Disk boot failures (Vista) I have been having intermittent boot failures on my 3-year old pc lately. When I power it up, it sometimes can't detect my primary harddisk (SATA, and it is a Maxtor), and I get an error like 'DISK BOOT FAILURE - INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER'.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 274

Total answers/comments: 2

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Guest [Entry]

From what you've said it would have to be either the motherboard or the disk that's the problem, it's at too low a level to be software. I suppose you could try a bios update but I think the most likely source of the problem is the hard drive itself. The first thing you should do is take backups while you still can. Since it's an intermittent problem it's not too surprising that the diagnostics didn't find it. I think it might be time to bite the bullet and buy yourself a new hard drive.

Guest [Entry]

"It might be worth testing the hard drive with SpinRite (http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm) - it sounds as if you have a failing drive.

However, I had a case where my PC kept 'losing' my second hard drive and in the end I found it was a loose SATA connection that was being knocked when I replaced the case on the PC.. I assume you've tried replacing the cables and checking all the connections?"