[Ham-Computers] disk boot failure

Sat, 16 Aug 2003 16:01:34 -0500

Yes.  It's telling you it can't find the boot sector on your hard drive.
First possibility is that something has come loose, and your hard disk is
not "talking".  Pop the case and re-seat all the connectors to the hard
drive.

Second possibility is that the boot sector of the disk has been damaged, and
is no longer readable.  In that case, put in a Win95 boot disk (floppy) and
you'll get a DOS prompt, but you'll be able to access the rest of the hard
disk.  The disk may not be recoverable, but the files and programs on it
should be.  Alternately, you can plug a second hard disk into the machine -
that has a good operating system install on it - and set it to the "master"
disk.  Then you can boot from the new one and copy files from the old to the
new.

Third possibility is that the disk has catestrophically failed - as in isn't
turning anymore (motors and bearings do wear out, you know).  If that's
happened, even if the boot disk gets the system up, you still won't be able
to salvage anything of the drive.

Most likely case is a loose connection, though, so start there.

Jay
KD5WLX
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian K. Gaskamp" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2003 12:28 PM
Subject: [Ham-Computers] disk boot failure

> I'm trying to get a computer running over here that has several good
> programs on it, running Win 95, and I'm getting a message saying, Disk
boot
> failure, insert system disk and press enter.
>
> Is this telling me I need a Win 95 boot disk to recover something?
> Never have seen a message like this in this particular computer.
>
> 73,
> Brian
>
> KA5BKG
>
>
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