Disk boot failure error message

[TechBook]

Hi,
My PC is giving me a "disk boot failure" error message when I try to boot it up. What does this mean exactly ? It appears, with rare exceptions, only when the PC is started. If I shut the PC down and restart it, everything appears to run properly. The only course of action left is to wipe my hard drive and run the system recovery CD. Before doing that, I need to know if there is anything else I can try.

P.S my operating system is windows vista

[Killen]

"I had a problem similar to yours, did a lot of digging on Google and got lots of advice, ran a bunch of diagnostics and could not find any problems. I thought my drive was ready to fail, so I looked into replacing it. But I happened to have a spare SATA cable lying around, and for the heck of it, tried replacing the cable. Since then, I've had no problems! My advice - before you buy a new hard drive, buy a replacement cable and see if that makes a difference. You might save yourself lots of $$$, like I did!"

Your action plan should be:

1. - Save/backup your email, documents and pictures, and music.

2. - Don't bother trying to backup your programs, because they usually need to be installed, not just copied back.

3. - Unplug the AC mains cable so the computer is not powered on. Replace the hard drive cable, or, at least, unplug it and then re-plug it. If the power supply unit has a spare 4-pin power lead (with yellow, black, black, red), then unplug the power connector from the hard drive and swap it. If there is no replacement available then unplug and re-plug the drive's power connector.

If doing that doesn't work, you could try running the hard-drive diagnostic utility that is provided by the drive's manufacturer. There is a list of links to the sites of the main manufacturer's provided at the top of this page. You should be able to identify the manufacturer by entering devmgmt.msc in the Start => Run box in Windows XP and in the Start => Start Search box in Windows Vista. That command brings up the Device Manager. Look under the Disk drives category by clicking on the + beside it.

If the hard disk drive is shown to be failing, make copies to recordable CD/DVDs of everything that you want to save, and then go through the process involved that will get your PC fixed by its manufacturer under its warranty.

[Hardwareman]

If your hard drive is not properly plugged in, this can also lead to a rebooting error message. Hence, I will suggest you to switch off your computer and remove it from the power switch before checking the cables attached to it. Ensure also that the motherboard is correctly installed. Hence, put it again and try running your system.

[Rawko]

It might be linked to a wrong set up of BIOS. Hence,
1. To enter BIOS, press the F8 key when the Windows screen shows up upon the start of the computer.
2. Then all you have top do is to prioritize the boot sequence to Disk C: