I've received this error recently, and I have looked online frequently for answers. However, it seems that no one shares my exact symptoms.
I've run XP Home on this computer for over a year problem free. One morning I went to turn the unit on. I heard what can only be described as "crackling" from inside the computer case. The computer reached the XP load screen and then died. THIS problem occurs ONLY when booting the computer when it is cold (sitting off for at least a few hours). It does not happen when coming out of standby...have not tried with hibernate as I don't use that.
I do not know what the crackling sound was (hdd, ps, mb?). The ps seems to be okay, but I plan to replace it soon. It's my guess that the mb is the problem, since that would be by far the biggest pain in the ass to replace.
Anyway, next time I turned on the computer, I got the disk boot failure. Here's where my situation differs from others: When I boot the computer and the XP disc is in the drive, I can get into Windows hassle-free. Without, I always get the error and cannot enter Windows at all. The BIOS has boot order set as DVDROM and then HDD. I have no floppy drive, so no floppy disks are causing the boot error.
I have checked the hard drive (seagate 320gb SATAII) with Seagate DOS tools. It found an error and SDT repaired it (no errors found since). The problem remains. I also used chkdsk and it found nothing.
I have attempted reinstalling XP twice. The problem remains. I am well versed in OS installation, so I know this was done correctly (delete/create partition, full format, install).
I'll probably try FDISK to see if it will rewrite the boot sector on the disk or get a new hdd...however, this will not remedy the first problem.
So basically I'm wondering if anyone has any input for either the cold-boot problem I have and/or the disk boot failure problem I have, or any suggestions on what may help remedy the problems. I'm confident the first issue has caused the second.
If you require more info, please don't hesitate to ask! Thanks for all your help.
I loaded optimized settings in the BIOS, which remedied the disk boot failure. Not sure why, since I checked several times for things like boot order and they were all fine. Oh well, even though I'm not sure what happened, I'll take it.
However, my initial problem of the computer dying upon cold start is still a significant issue. Any help would be strongly appreciated. Thank you again!
That's a difficult one. As for what the crackling sound is, I've no idea, but it sounds rather odd. The problem seems to be an issue with the SATA chipset, since it has issues recognising your hard drive. As for how you can remedy it, have you looked at the effect of changing the S-ATA cable and which port it's plugged into on the motherboard?
I did try plugging the hdd into a different port on the board, but that had not made a difference. The hdd is not causing any issues now (see my update post) but I will take your advice and change the S-ATA cables just in case they contributed to the problem.
I'll also swap the ps and see if I can let the computer shut off for long periods of time without the crinkle-crackle sounds (and subsequent complete automatic shut down of the computer). If it's not the ps then looks like I'll be affording a shiny new mb and a few gigs of compatible RAM.
Mmm. If the PC shuts down after the crackle, it's definitely a short circuit, which is most likely to be either the motherboard not being installed correctly, or a fault with the power supply. It could potentially be a fault with one of the other internal components, but I wouldn't put that as highly likely.
