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can anyone tell me if my computer is broken?
Can anyone help me please! When trying boot up the PC all I get is place boot disc in drive a. It was ok when I switched it off so whats gone wrong and how do I solve it.
Peter
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21 Replies
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Doesn’t sound too good….
Are you getting any warning beeps on start up?
You may have lost the hard drive. prob need to open the box and ensure the cables are still plugged in. Not so common now, but older machine used to suffer from cables working loose due to thermal expansion and contraction. Check that the jumper pin is still fitted on the hard drive too……..
Worst case, your hard drive has failed..
😮 🙁
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If there isnt a floppy disc in the drive then it looks like your boot priorities have somehow changed.
When you first turn the machine on a load of text should appear, press F10 or delete immediately (depending on machine) and you will be taken into the BIOS settings. You need to change the boot priorities to show Hard Drive first, CD second and Floppy third.
Save the settings using the options displayed and reboot.
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Paul that was my thoughts but how can they change on their own?
Peter
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quote Peter Munday:Paul that was my thoughts but how can they change on their own?
Peter
Could be something as simple as a virus. Try it and see if it works, if it does then run a full system scan.
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is there any more to the message than place boot disc in?
yes, HDD failure is what your describing, although it could just be the boot stage….
one method of loosing windows is turning off the system by the plug when u have ‘logged off’ but the computer is installing windows updates.
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Check the obvious first. Make sure you haven’t got a disc of any sort in drive "a". if there is a disc fitted the PC will try and boot up from it rather than the hard drive. Easy mistake to make and easy to fix – just remove the floppy 😕
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Go on.. admit it Peter….. You left a floppy in drive "a" didn’tcha, I bet you did.. didnt’cha. 😛 😛
Well did’ya ? 😕
Knobhead 🙄
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Nice one Phil, but to be honest its the mother-in-laws PC and not mine. I’m just going to give her a ring and let her know she’s a knobhead then. 😮 😮 😮
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It sounds like the system files on c: have been corrupted, maybe a crash, power failure or whatever. It is looking for a copy of the system files from the place they used to be A:
Without these files, windows does not recognise the c: drive as a bootable disk, so goes to the next one in the boot order
If all else fails, stick in a boot disk and use dos commands,
SYS [drive1:][path] drive2:
Parameters
[drive1:][path]
Specifies the location of the system files. If you do not specify a
path, MS-DOS searches the root directory on the current drive for the
system files.drive2:
Specifies the drive to which you want to copy the system files. These
files can be copied only to a root directory, not to a subdirectory.Hope this helps
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disco, is that safe to use on XP?
I remember using that on other OS’s but you don’t really have XP boot disks -
Hi there, its the same basic procedure for all windows versions,……..except that XP may have its boot disk, or system files on CD. I’ve used it a few times on XP, even used 98 system files to get windows jump started.
If you cross your fingers, everything is safe! -
quote Peter Munday:Nice one Phil, but to be honest its the mother-in-laws PC and not mine. I’m just going to give her a ring and let her know she’s a knobhead then. 😮 😮 😮
I dunnno – is it politically correct to call your mother in law a "Knobhead". I would just tell her she’s a silly bitch instead 😕
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Sorry, Disco… It wont work as Windows XP is based on Windows 2000 and NT and not the Windows 98 systems.
Sys used to copy the boot sector information from the floppy disk (like msdos.sys, io.sys) and place them on the harddrive. I think it may have altered the MBR to boot, but cant remember. Windows XP uses boot.ini/ntloader and starts a different way.First we need to confirm the full message Peter is seeing, I think there is a bit more to it. Like "unable to boot from drive – please insert disk in A:\" etc.
Also, Peter is there a horrible noise coming from the computer or is it more silent then normal? how about tick-tick tick tick while it is waiting for that disk?
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🙄
Don’t you get it Dave? Mother in law was just being a dickhead as usual 😕
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Yes Phill
Peter… if you hear these noises
$this->auto_embed_video(‘http://www.youtube.com/v/Jpd4itztIYQ?version=3&hl=en_US’, ‘560’, ‘340’)$this->auto_embed_video(‘http://www.youtube.com/v/FeHfwNgFVTI?version=3&hl=en_US’, ‘560’, ‘340’)
$this->auto_embed_video(‘http://www.youtube.com/v/k_e5ByzRsNM?version=3&hl=en_US’, ‘560’, ‘340’)
Do not open it like these idiots did
The drive may have Maxtor written on it the drive
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Get into dos and type Fdisk /mbr
That will sort it if its only the boot record thats missing, you will need a boot disc or windows cd though.This restores the master boot record.
works in a lot of cases. -
Dave the only horrible noise is coming from ma-in-law (chat.) (chat.)
Peter
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Nah nah nah – you’ve all got it wrong. The stupid mother in law left a disk in drive a. Simple as . Problem solved, bish bosh, remove the floppy. Ask Peter 😛
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ok.. well we take it as fixed then…
yeah, fdisk trick.. not really tried that one tho. -
Dave thanks for helping but at the moment the PC is at ma’s so I can’t tell you what exactly she’s getting. I will ask her tomorrow.
Peter
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I just want to appologise for calling Peters mother in law a Knobhead last night. I wasn’t quite myself at the time, but I’m fine again now. 😳
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