Member Avatar for leosomme

Hi I'm new here and want to say hello to everyone, but I need help. I believe my PC recently got a virus. I've tried to start it again and it won't boot. I can get into the BIOS but can't figure what to do. I have the OS disk and have trying to run it but it keeps getting an error saying "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter". Nothing I've tried so far works, although all I've done was try changing the boot order to the cd rom drive. I can't think of what I can do other than try and get a new Hard Drive, but I want to avoid that. Can someone please point me in the right direction?

My os is Vista 32-Bit home premium.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by gavin.williams

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Member Avatar for sillyboy

What is this "OS disk" you speak of? it is a CD or a floppy disk?

Anyway, if the boot sequence recognises the CD as a higher priority than the HDD, use the Vista CD and boot from that. If that is actually what you are trying to do, it is somehow not recognising it as a "system disk", so try get another copy, even a XP cd will be fine, but then you'll probably need to start fresh.

Member Avatar for leosomme

I got it to finally read the cd, it loads all the information on it, but freezes at the microsoft loading screen, I've even left it on for awhile to see if it did anything and nothing happened. Any other possibilities?

Member Avatar for sillyboy

you need to a find a cd that doesn't have errors on it (probably scratches).

Member Avatar for gavin.williams

What kind of motherboard is on the PC? Be as specific as possible. Maybe there is some info somewhere about clearing the CMOS with jumpers.

Another option is to open the PC case and look for a round battery (about 2cm in diameter). It looks like a flat silver coin, or an oversized watch battery. Hopefully your PC is not so old that it has some other type of battery.

If you find the battery, remove it for a period of time (a couple of hours), overnight might even be better. Make sure the PC if off when you do this, and that you are properly grounded.

Removing the battery should clear up all the BIOS settings.

Also, try using the bootdisk once again, and entering FDISK at the A:\> prompt. Then select: Display partition information. See anything there? Is the partition set as active in Status? (The hard disk is not startable unless a partition is set as active.)

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