DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

[Jerry]

I keep on getting this error message on Home Premium.Im running two 500GB
Sata hard drives. I've tried changing BIOS settings plenty of times. Any
suggestions or solutions?

[Geoff P]

It sounds like your hard drive has a problem in the boot sector area, which
is causing the occasional glitch. Try running a full error check by right
clicking on the suspect drive in My Computer, select Properties, then Tools
and Error Checking - tick both boxes to look for errors as well as faulty
sectors. On a 500Gb drive it'll take a while, but you can stop it once it's
progressing through the drive, as the boot sector is obviously at the
beginning.

If this doesn't work you'll need some more sophisticated tool that reformats
as it goes.

[John Barnes]

If you have a floppy drive higher in boot order than the HD, you may have
non bootable media in it. Make sure you don't have your Install DVD in the
drive, and make sure that the first hard drive in boot order is the one that
the Vista boot files are on and that the correct partition is marked active.

[AJR]

Assuming there is not a disk in the floppy drive - the error messge idicates
the sysyem does not see the drive with the active partition
(usually "C") meaning no drive prompt.

Majority of times BIOS has failed to recognize the drive - BIOS setting
should be set at "Auto" drive detection, however you can set the drive
parameters manually.

System files referred to are those installed during drive format - if the OS
was "defective" the messasge would state "missing operating sysstem".

Try a repair with the Vista DVD - it may solve the problem since initial
access is via CD/DVD drive.