DISK BOOT FAILURE error after installing Linux Mint 12

This is the first time I tried to Linux in my computer. At first formatted the drive by the use of XP Recovery option and created a Mint 12 installation CD by downloading and burning down Mint iso image on a DVD. Now the problem is, the disk won’t run at all and it is an Nvidia driver issue. All setup went fine and I can see files get loading and showing all the prompts. After that the monitor goes black. Now when I try to boot up from HDD, it shows me DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK. When I try to re-install it, the system shows me that it is exist in that directory. What can I do now?

If you are getting any problem with Linux Mint installation or Booting, you have to take a look into the latest version of the user guide. It seems to me that the installation did not prompt for installing the grub. For that you need to open a terminal windows and type appropriate commands as suggested in user guide.

First of all tell me have you changed the location of grub during the installation other than Grub. To make the Grub work, you have to install it in the MBR. Actually the location is just a drive without any number following it. However if you have not installed the Grub yet, you can boot from the livecd and re-install from there. Otherwise you can also use the Boot Repair or just re-install mint

As far as I know that the BIOS loads anything is on the first part of the boot device. I think that the Windows loader is still on the top and for that reason pre-loader loads the windows loader first and the windows loader loads windows. Otherwise simply think that the BIOS cannot load the pre-loader. Have you tried restoring the disk? By the use of Linux Mint disk, you can fix it. If it doesn’t, then it surely be the hardware problem.

It looks like that MBR acting strange and it does not show disk as bootable. In order to check your HDD, You can remove it from your computer and connect it to the computer as slave drive. To connect, you can use the HDD enclosure (SATA) using the USB connection. After this you can use good disk management software to check the errors on the disk and re-mark the default partition as bootable. After this connect it back to your computer and try booting it again.