Re: Yet another Disk Boot Failure debacle

"Fabien LE LEZ" <gramster@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:ka3af2tfp3mmgjn8ncb8618nouo12aeuob@xxxxxxx
On 29 Aug 2006 10:54:25 -0700, "dbubd" <matthewmwarren@xxxxxxxxx>:

When I start it up... Disk Boot Failure (DBF)...

It might be a software problem (Windows improperly installed), or a
motherboard problem.

It can be anything imaginable *or* it can be just *that* what
issues *the error message*, wouldn't you agree, babblebot-2 ?


Sometimes, when I move hard disks around (keeping my "main" disk as master on IDE1

of course),

Of course, speaks for itself, right. So why?

the BIOS won't find the right boot sector, and Windows 2000 won't start.

That can happen when your bios boot sequence has not been set to boot the
intended bootdisk first. This can happen when your other harddrives have
different partition configurations, e.g. one with only extented partitions
and one with a primary partition. Put them in the wrong order (before
your bootdrive) and your BIOS stops skipping them (when it reaches the
one with the primary partition) before it reaches the actual bootdrive.
Put the one with primary behind the bootdrive and all is OK again.

Fortunately, on my motherboard (like on most recent motherboards),
I can press "Escape" to have a "boot menu" (i.e. I can choose which
drive to boot on). Then it works fine.

So set your preferred bootsequence to that drive first.


Usually, after a while, the problem disappears. I'm not sure why.

On other PCs, I've seen the boot sector damaged, but apparently due to
software reasons,

It's always software reasons, simply because a physically damaged boot
sector just doesn't read at all.

since reinstalling Windows did the trick.


.

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