Strange Windows Boot Problem...

[Simian]

I recently had to purchase a new hard drive for my PC as the 200gb (IDE) hard drive kept giving me a 'NON SYSTEM BOOT DISK' error on bootup!..

So I bought a 250Gb SATA drive!..

Plugged it in and loaded Windows onto it!.. All was going well and good, I installed all the drivers, Programs and gubbins that the Motherboard etc.. needed.

I then installed a few apps I had stored on my Toshiba 2Gb USB flash drive, one of the programs required a reboot!..

On bootup I got the same 'NON SYSTEM BOOT DISK' error which confused me to say the least!... I popped the XP disk back in and 'FIXMBR' and 'FIXBOOT' sorted it...

I then had to reboot again after installing another program... Same Error.. This time I did notice 'NVRaid' doing something before the error popped up!...

So after 'FIXMBR/BOOT' again I expreimented.. rebooted with no USB flash plugged in... Fine straight into Windows!, then Rebooted with the Flash drive plugged in.. NVRaid and 'NON SYSTEM BOOT DISK'

It seem like the nVidia Raid thinngy is trying to Raid together all my drives (I also have 2x IDE drives in the systam as storage!) on Boot and shove my SATA drive to the back of the boot order!!...

Its not major as I just need to remember to unplug the USB Flash before re-booting... but its annoying!!...

Plus (dunno if this is connected) I can't seem to get it to dual boot with (any version of) Linux... It installs fine (onto my old 20Gb Quantum) adds the Grub to the MBR... but Grub never gets a chance to start and my PC just boots to Windows!?!?!...

My System is: (I know its crap!!..)

Abit NF8-V2 (socket 754)
AMD64 (Newcastle) 3400+
1.5Gb PC3200
nVidia 7300GT AGP
250Gb SATA Maxtor (Boot)
200Gb IDE Maxtor (Music/Photos etc..)
20Gb IDE Quantum (Linux)
120Gb USB OneTouch (Backup)
2Gb Toshiba USB Flash (Document Transfer)
Windows XP Professional SP3
Linux Ubuntu v8.04 (non-bootable Grub)

Anyone know how to sort this and possibly get my Linux working too??..

Cheers.
Sim.

 

[Simian]

It goes...

First Boot: Floppy
Second Boot: CDROM (of which I have 2)
Third Boot: Hard Disk
Boot Other Device: Disabled

Hard Disk Booth Priority:

1, 250Gb SATA
2, 20Gb IDE
3, 200Gb IDE
4, Add-in Cards

 

[Simian]

Disable everything apart from the HDD and try again.

This works fine, but I can't install Linux as it needs to boot from a CD to install!...

disconnect the ide drive and lauch the recovery console from the Windows XP setup disc.

run CHKDSK /f

then

run FIXMBR & FIXBOOT

I've done this in the OP..

If you have more than one SATA HDD then read the paragraph "More than one physical SATA HHDs?" in the link below:



http://www.huddysworld.co.uk/TheAdm...FAILURE,_INSERT_SYSTEM_DISK_AND_PRESS_ENTER__

I only have 1 SATA drive.. the others are a 200Gb and 20Gb IDE, a 120Gb USB (One Touch) and a 2Gb USB stick (which seems to cause the RAID problem!)..

I'm happy to boot the system without the 2Gb Flash drive plugged in (when I remember to remove it!)..

But its the fact that I can't get my dual boot to Ubuntu (I know this isn't the Linux forum) to work!.. it just seems to ignore the Grub loader and goes straight to Windows!!...