Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk And Press Enter

[rasilun]

Hey guys. Usually I could fix something like this but I'm stumped... 

Compaq
Presario - S6220WM

Use to have XP Home with a backup installed on it (via F10). I stuck a hard drive in it and 2 CD ROM Drives. Every time I try and boot up to install Windows I get "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk And Press Enter". I have unhooked the hard drives (to rule them out just trying to boot to CD), and tried two XP CD's plus a Vista that I have to make sure it's not my CD's. I have 2 CD Drives in it and have tried both of them and still get this error. The are turning on and set to primary in the BIOS. I even took everything out of the boot menu equation just to make sure that all that was there is boot to CD ROM.

I have also reset CMOS just in case that was messing with something. I'm thinking that maybe it's looking for this backup partition or something. Not real sure. This is my first time jacking with a home system like this and it's very un-user friendly...

Any ideas? Feel free to ask questions if I forgot something. Thanks in advance.

[patio]

Where is that HDD from ? ?
Another machine i presume and it already has an OS installed on it which is why it won't boot.
However this should not prevent your machine from booting to an XP/Vista CD...
Do these CD's have shiny holograms all over them and say Microsoft ? ?

One thing you could try is to connect the drive in another machine as a slave drive and format it from there...make sure you format the correct drive.

[rasilun]

The HDD is from another machine and pre-formated. It has no OS on it. Again, I unhooked the HDD's and am now just trying to boot to a XP CD. I will try and throw the CD Drives in another machine to make sure that they are functional.

And yes, they are Microsoft CD's........     Can't blame you for asking I guess.   

[Frankie]

Try using kill disk on the hard drive first and making sure there are no partitions on the drive. Have you also set the jumpers correct and set cdrom as your first boot device in the bios? You also say "They are turning on and set to primary in the BIOS" what do you mean by this? Have you put both Cdroms as primary? Because its best to go: Primary Master-Hard Drive/Secondary Master-Cdrom/ Secondary Slave- other cdrom.

link to kill disk is: http://www.killdisk.com/

[patio]

Still does not explain why you are not able to boot to a bootable CD if the options are correct in the BIOS...
Is there a floppy in the drive ? ?
Is there a flash drive connected ? ?

[rasilun]

Have you also set the jumpers correct and set cdrom as your first boot device in the bios? You also say "They are turning on and set to primary in the BIOS" what do you mean by this? Have you put both Cdroms as primary? Because its best to go: Primary Master-Hard Drive/Secondary Master-Cdrom/ Secondary Slave- other cdrom.

The jumpers are correct. As I stated, I took the HDD completely out of the equation. In the boot setup via CMOS, the first device is CDROM, everything else is "none" because all I'm trying to do right now is boot up to the CD. I'm just trying to rule everything else out. both CD ROMS are not primary I was just trying to state that they were above HDD in the boot options.

Still does not explain why you are not able to boot to a bootable CD if the options are correct in the BIOS...
Is there a floppy in the drive ? ?
Is there a flash drive connected ? ?

Yes Patio, it doesn't explain why I can't boot to a bootable CD that I can boot to on any other machine. That's the part that is getting me. maybe I should have just stated that in stead of going all in to detail.    Tonight, I will take out both CD Drives and test them in another machine but they should be working. Kind of odd that both would fail and they are not old crappy drives.

There is no floppy but there is USB. If I have no luck with CD's tonight I'll try booting to a USB install. I forgot all about that but now that I think about it this machine is a little older then 2 years. I'm not sure if it will have the option to boot to USB. We will see tonight.

Thanks for the ideas.

[patio]

Unhook all drives except for one optical drive and see if it will boot to an XP CD...if it does not the drive is shot...
Same for the other one although it's odd both would fail at the same time but i ain't seen everything yet...