Cannot get past "boot disk failure ..."

[OldeThom]

Hello folks, it is me again. OK, in my last post (Will Windows 7 install on a Presario S6500NX?) I received some valuable information about the S6500NX regarding Win 7. Now I have all the parts to start the install, some old, some new (listed):

1. WD3200AAJB (hard drive, 320 GB, ATA-100)
2. 2GB DDR PC2700 RAM (2 x 1GB) - CT2KIT12864Z335
3. Radeon HD 4670 IceQ Native HDMI 1 GB DDR3 AGP 8X/4X Graphics Card (H467QS1GHA)
4. ENERMAX Tomahawk ETK500AWT 500W ATX12V V2.2 PS

The rest of the components are the stock components that came with system originally. The original HD died, a 160GB Seagate, but I can certainly go back to original config on the other components, if necessary. The Compaq cd's and/or floppy's that came with this system have long since been "lost".

I have the Win 7 Home Premium dvd in the DVD player, at this time it is the only removal disc connected to the bus as the system also came with a R/W CDRom (the floppy is also connected), and no matter what I try to get into the BIOS (F1, F10 or del - feverishly pressing either of theses keys immediately after pressing the power button) I cannot get past the "BOOT DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" message as it immediately appears (< 1 sec). Since I bought the OEM version of Win 7 Home Premium I cannot just install Win 7 on the HD from one of my other systems. I have tried disconnecting both floppy and/or the HD but get the same message. Pressing enter in ALL cases results in nothing more than the same message being displayed. The DVD player light goes on briefly, but the Win7 dvd is never read.

I took the 320GB drive and put it into my custom built, Win 7 Pro 64bit system (older Gigabyte mobo which still had ATA IDE connectors as well as SATA - no floppy installed) without changing anything else (but making sure none of the other HD's were connected) and wanted to see if the drive could be recognised. First I had to go into the bios to enable the ATA/IDE bus (had it disabled since I was only using SATA drives). Happily the drive was detected and the Win 7 Home install interface came up and I could proceed to the prompt to format the drive, which I did NOT do - or should I have? Would it have started installing the OS immediately after formating? So the 320 HD was detected just fine.

What I am doing wrong (besides trying to do something to an older system well past it's prime)? This the first Compaq I have ever encountered personally. I've invested much time, effort and money into this thing and would like to see a success. I am willing to scrap the whole thing, though, if this simply cannot be done.

Questions:

1. How do I get into the bios? Or is this even necessary? - This is the important question! (I think I need to change the bios option to seek the DVD drive first - yes?)
2. Is there such a thing as a floppy based boot/install disc for Win 7?
3. Can I format the drive on my Gigabyte mobo based system without installing the WIN 7 - is that possible and would that make a difference? 

Thanks in advance,

Thom

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Thom:

I can't help with why you can't get into the BIOS. F10 should do it, but did you try hitting the F9 key immediately upon getting the HP welcome screen to see if it gives you the one time boot menu like most HP-Compaq PC's allow?

That way you insert the DVD, select the DVD-ROM drive from the list of bootable devices and see what happens.

Your second question...I think not. I could not find any info about creating W7 start-up floppy disks.

You can try installing W7 by putting the new hard drive in the other PC and just not activate the installation, remove the drive, and cross your fingers. Most likely it will not work but if the one time boot menu option doesn't allow you to boot from the DVD and install W7, then I don't see that you have anything to lose by trying.

Paul

[OldeThom]

Thanks Paul for the quick response! WoW!

I never get a Compaq Welcome screen - should I be each time I turn on the system? - HD/FD installed or not? Never see a boot menu either. Since I do not see this Welcome screen, does that mean the mobo is toast then? Tried F9 and does nothing. I did move over my LCD monitor since it is an instant on type as opposed to the Compaq CRT monitor which is so slow to show/refresh the screen. Turns out, the post data does come up very briefly, showing bios name, ram, etc with an <F1> or <F2> at the bottom but it is so brief (< 1 sec) there is no time to do anything with it before I get the "BOOT DISK FAILURE ..." msg.

I will try installing it on my other system then, stripping it down to only what is needed to install. I have read where other people have tried this with varying levels of success. One area of concern is that I do not have a single core processor system around anymore ... and that seems more than any other to be an issue when trying this.

Questions:

1. Should I be seeing a Compay Welcome Screen each time the system is turned on?
2. F9 does not produce a boot menu, should it?
3. Should I try resetting the CMOS?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're welcome, Thom.

It is possible that the PC is so old that it does not have a one time boot otion menu but I would think that since it can run PC2700 memory, it is new enough to do so.

So, it may be possible that the only way to access the DVD is to make sure it is set as the first boot device.

And the only way to do that is to get into the BIOS, which you can't do.

Did you try the F2 key at startup? On some old PC's the F2 key got you into the bios.

I do not know of any PC that didn't provide a HP or Compaq welcome screen when first turning on the PC.

I once had an old HP Vectra VL 420 that would not boot from a DVD-ROM drive. It would only boot from a CD-ROM drive. I could never figure that out. The DVD drive worked fine when in Windows, but did absolutely nothing as a bootable device--even with the F9 boot menu.

Of course a CD-ROM drive is useless when installing W7.

You can try resetting the CMOS.

...I'm thinking that PC has issues.

I still don't think you have anything to lose by installing W7 on the other PC and see what happens.

The core thing may be an issue. In Windows XP you could hit the F5 key and change the HAL to a "Standard PC."  

I don't think you can do that with W7.

Paul

[OldeThom]

Thanks so much for the quick response and for being on today - ! Well, I tried something else. I grabbed an old Toshiba dvd player (not r/w) from my parts cabinet and used it instead and wa la! I still got the  Boot Disk Failure ..." msg, but upon pressing return it read the Win7 dvd! Joy, rapture! Now the sad and disheartening news and it starts with:

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change ,,,,

then some options

then:

File: \windows\system32\biit\winload.exe

Status: 0xc000035a

Info: Attempting to load a 64bit application, however this cpu is not compatible

with 64-bit mode.

So observations:

1. The original dvd player that came with the system (a Ricoh MP5240A) which happens to also be a RW/R+ drive which I did not know until I looked it up ... failed.
2. Still cannot get into the bios even after resetting the CMOS jumper.
3. F2 did not work either to get into the bios.
4. Since I never see a Compaq Welcome screen, perhaps the bios/cmos chip is toast.
5. ... I think this PC has issues ... is an understatement.

I don't really enjoy this analogy but I think I am trying to beat a dead horse. I have some good parts, plus an old Gigabyte GS-K8NS mobo (my old mobo before I upgraded my system) and an EPoX 9NPA+ SLI mobo I've never used - both are full atx mobo's, so now all I need is a case and check out which of these mobo's can install a Win7 64bit OS.

Thanks again for all your help.

Kind regards,

Thom

[OldeThom]

OMG! I decided to reset the password jumper (CLPWD) (I had already reset the CMOS jumper CLRTC) just for kicks after reading over the manual one more time to see if I missed anything. You know what, pressing F1 got me into the BIOS!!!

Once in I was able to change the boot order to 1.) CDROM and 2.) HD and disabled the rest (odd there is no option to disable FD controller). I noticed the time and date were correct. The Boot diagnostics screen was disabled so I enabled it. Otherwise no surprises ... except that there is no mention of Compaq (sometimes there is an option to enable/disable startup screens - not sure about Compaq's) anywhere. This is an A7V8X-LA mobo, it is stamped right on the board, but do not see a "Kamet 2" mentioned anywhere. The Compaq manual, the only thing Compaq that I have, besides the S6500NX name plate on the case, does not mention a motherboard type at all. I am wondering if this is a Compaq motherboard at all??

Now I did look up to see if the Athlon 64 3000+ supports Win 7 64 bit and by all indications it should. So why am I getting the message about the cpu not supporting 64 bit?

Thom

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, Thom:

Glad you are making progress!

I agree that the Athlon 64 should take W7x 64 and I have no idea why it won't.

But I have a workaround in my bag of tricks if you want to give it a go...

I would have never advised you to install W7 x64 on a PC than can only handle 2 GB of memory.

The minimum recommended memory for running W7 x64 is 2 GB.

A 64 bit OS needs (and uses) more memory to run than a 32 bit OS does--not double but more, so unless you have 4+ GB of memory, I would never have done that.

Here is a good article on the subject...there are several.

http://www.howtogeek.com/56701/htg-explains-whats-the-difference-between-32-bit-and-64-bit-windows-7...

How many 64 bit programs do you have?  I bet none.  With that old PC and that amount of memory, you are actually going to lose performance with a 64 bit OS then you would have with a 32 bit OS.

But you bought an OEM W7 64 bit program and that only comes with one disk...

So, here is what you do...

Try this workaround:

Using the 25 character Microsoft windows 7 product key, you can download plain Windows 7 ISO files to burn to DVD's for the OEM version of windows (I assume Home Premium).

So, download and burn the W7 Home Premium 32 bit ISO file to a DVD and see if that will install. It should.

Burn the ISO using the Burn ISO option on your DVD burning program and burn at the slowest possible speed your program will allow. This will create a bootable DVD.

Use the 25 character product key from your install kit to activate the installation.

The key will activate either a 32 or 64 bit installation.

Link to the W7 ISO file downloads is below.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-s​p1-iso-from-digital-river/

Paul

[OldeThom]

Paul you have a heart of gold and a ton of patience, thank you for helping out and staying with me on this. Yes, 2GB was the minimum on 64 bit, I read that, but I thought I'd have the option of installing 32 or 64 bit, guess not with the OEM version - that is my bad. I will download the 32 ISO as you mentioned and give that a shot. I've not burned a dvd anything yet, (cd's but not dvd's) and I do have Roxio Creator XE so I will try that program a try to burn the ISO.

One last thing, the first link to How-To-Geek worked, and read through most the article, but the second link to My Digital Life reported: "Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here." I will try to find it.

Here's looking at you ... 

I will keep you posted.

Kind regards,

Thom

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome, Thom.

I am not familiar with all the versions of Roxio. It must have an ISO file burning option but if for some odd reason it doesn't then this freebie does.

http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home

Looking forward to reading about a success story.

Best regards,

Paul

[OldeThom]

I think I found the right link (for SP1) http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/