Boot failure detected what to do. Fixing the DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK error and why it appears. Other causes of the “DISC BOOT FAILURE, INSERT...” error
Disk Error boot failure, insert system disk and press Enter may appear for every PC user and indicate that hard drive damaged and needs to be replaced.
However, this message does not mean that the hard drive is completely unusable. You can try to correct any mistake. How to do this in this case?
Causes of the error and methods for solving it
The first reason why this problem may occur is a problem with the drive and the presence of a floppy disk. Despite the fact that many people no longer use these drives, failure of the devices can affect the system. Therefore, it is worth opening the cover of the system unit and disconnecting all the drive cables from the motherboard.
Then we boot up to check. If this method does not work, move on to the second.
The second reason is USB settings. Sometimes the BIOS does not see the boot entries on the flash drive and may throw an error. If you made changes to the BIOS, it's worth putting everything back.
The fourth reason is boot priority in the BIOS. In order for the hard drive to be displayed and the system to boot, the hard drive must be a priority. To do this, you need to turn off the PC with the power button and turn it back on by pressing F2 and Del. Select from the list Advanced BIOS Features.
Next, swap the boot devices. We set the hard drive or Hard Disc first, CD/DVD second. The last option is used only when reinstalling Windows or when restoring the system. Only in these cases is it given priority. After selecting, press Enter.
Returns to main page. Press F10. A new window will appear asking you to save your changes. Use the arrows to select Y.
The PC will reboot and login will begin.
Question from a user
Good afternoon.
Help please! When starting the computer an error is written:
"disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter". I understand that this means some kind of problem with the hard drive (is it broken?). How to fix this error?PS: I don’t want to take the computer in for repairs - there’s no point, it’s already 7-8 years old (I’d like to manage it on my own).
Hello!
The appearance of such an error does not always mean that something has happened to your disk. If translated into Russian, this error means: " Boot disk not found, insert the system disk and press Enter."
Those. this could happen, for example, if you disconnected the hard drive (a cable came loose, say), or because the computer is looking for boot records on the wrong media (for example, due to incorrect BIOS settings).
There are actually many reasons, in this article I will touch on the most basic ones, so that anyone who has the slightest knowledge of a PC can try to solve the problem...
Solution (reasons)
Reason 1: forgotten floppy disk, floppy drive (Drive a)
Solution
Of course, I understand that floppy disks and floppy drives (in the jargon “flops”) have already sunk into oblivion... However, many still have them on old computers! Moreover, in many educational institutions They are forced to do various jobs on floppy disks (so that floppy disks are still alive in some places ☺)!
The point is: check to see if the floppy disk is inserted into the drive. If you have a floppy disk, remove it and restart your PC!
By the way, also check if you have a floppy drive installed. If there is one, it is advisable to open the system unit and remove the cables that are connected to it from the floppy drive (perform the operation with the PC completely turned off!). After, turn on the PC and see if the error disappears...
Reason 2: a disk is inserted into the CD/DVD drive, a flash drive is in the USB port
Solution
The same can be said about flash drives and CD/DVD drives - check if there is any media left in the tray or USB port. If there is, remove it and restart your computer.
Reason 3: Boot priority changed in BIOS
Solution
The BIOS has a special section that is responsible for which media the computer will try to boot from (for example, from a hard drive or from a flash drive). If the settings in this section are set incorrectly, then the computer will look for boot records on the wrong media, and, naturally, not finding anything, it will give you this error.
Most often, many novice users change these settings when installing/reinstalling Windows and then forget to change them back (although sometimes various “accidents” cannot be ruled out). As a result, the installation proceeds normally, but Windows subsequently does not boot...
The photo below shows the loading priority:
- first the PC will try to boot from the CD/DVD (see 1st Boot Device);
- if the CD/DVD is not found, it will try to boot from the hard drive (see 2nd Boot Device). If the hard drive is not found, the error “DISK BOOT FAILURE...” will appear.
Information
I already have articles on BIOS setup on my blog (entering BIOS, changing boot priority, resetting settings, etc.). Because The topics are quite voluminous; it is not possible to tell all these “subtleties” in this article. Therefore, to check your BIOS settings, I suggest you use the materials linked below.
How to enter BIOS on a computer / laptop -
How to configure the BIOS to boot from a flash drive or disk (CD/DVD/USB) -
How to reset BIOS settings -
Reason 4: the battery is dead motherboard
Solution
The BIOS settings may become confused due to the fact that the battery on the motherboard is dead. It looks like a small round “tablet”. Thanks to it, your settings are in BIOS computer keeps in "memory". In addition, you probably noticed that the time and date are also counted correctly due to something, even when the computer has been turned off for weeks!
On average, such a battery can last 8-10 years. If there is something wrong with it, you can notice it by the same erroneous date and time (they will need to be corrected after each time you turn on the PC). In general, there is nothing tricky - you can replace it yourself...
Reason 5: Is your hard drive detected and is everything okay? Check the cables
Solution
When you boot your computer on many models, you can see a black screen with various inscriptions “flickering” before the Windows logo appears. Among them, by the way, you can see the name and model of the processor, disk, number RAM and other parameters. You can also see this information if you go into the BIOS (I provided links above in the article on how to do this).
So, check whether your hard drive is detected and whether the PC model sees it. The photo below shows a Samsung brand hard drive (everything is fine with it). If the disk is not displayed, most likely there is some kind of hardware problem...
In the most harmless case, the cables came loose (for example, they might not have been inserted tightly when the system unit was assembled). They are also often disconnected/attached when connecting another drive, or when cleaning the PC from dust. Therefore, the first thing I recommend doing if the PC does not see the disk is to disconnect the cables, blow out dust in the sockets, and connect them back (do this with the PC completely turned off!).
If the PC still does not see the drive, try connecting the drive to another computer/laptop. It is possible that the disk has become unusable (this also happens sometimes, especially when there was a sharp surge in electricity: lightning, welding, etc.).
You might find this article useful on how to connect a hard drive from a laptop to a computer -
Reason 6: Windows crashed
Solution
Also another popular reason for this error is corruption of boot files. Windows records(many people simply say in slang that “the system has failed”). In this case, you can try to either restore old Windows, or just install a new one. The choice is yours.
How to restore Windows 10: step-by-step instructions -
Installing Windows 10 from a USB flash drive - step by step -
In addition, you can try to boot from the emergency liveCD and try to scan the system for viruses, transfer important data from system disk to other media, i.e. make a backup necessary information. A link to an article on creating a liveCD is provided below.
How to create a bootable LiveCD/DVD/USB flash drive or operating disk Windows system and service utilities that do not require installation on the hard drive -
That's all, additions are welcome.
All Windows 7 boot files are located in the Boot folder, which is usually located on the C: drive. However, the folder is securely hidden so that our playful hands cannot reach it. Not surprisingly, the contents of the folder determine whether Windows will boot or not.
However, there are situations when you really want to change the Windows 7 boot method. For example, when working with, you may need a program such as ReadyDriverPlus. For this program to work, you need to specify the path to the C:\Boot folder. You go to the C: drive and... you don’t see this folder at all. She's not there, just roll the ball. And how to find it?
There are two simple options, discussed below.
Showing hidden folders and files
This recipe is well known to many Windows 7 users, but it wouldn’t hurt to remind you about it again. Default in Windows 7 system files and the folders are hidden - that’s understandable, well, who wants some teapot to get into places it shouldn’t and ruin everything it could? However, files and folders are hidden very close.
- To get started, select a team Start > Computer and go to the C: drive in the window that opens.
- Now you need to press the key
to display the top menu bar. In this panel, select the command Tools > Folder Options. A window will open Folder Options, in which go to the tab View. - In this tab you need to do two things:
- uncheck the box Hide protected system files;
- select radio button Show hidden files, folders and drives.
Now Windows doesn’t have a single folder or file hidden from your eyes. Go to drive C:. Now it has a bunch of hidden folders that you better not mess around with!
Showing a hidden section
Okay, I see all the hidden folders, but there is still no Boot folder? Where is my Boot folder, you bastards, give me my boot files!
Calm down - we'll find it now. Since she's not in hidden folders, that means she’s hiding...in the hidden Windows section 7. The evil chebureks from Microsoft hid this section from us, but we will fix it now. The partition size is only 100 MB, and you can find it as follows.
Press the key combination
This section is hidden and cannot be seen. To bring it into the light of day, click on the section right click and select a team Change drive letter or drive path.
A new window will open, in which click on the button Add and select a free drive letter, like Y: or any other.
Hello! A few days ago they brought me a system unit. They said it won't start. I thought I would just transfer Windows there, but that was not the case, it turned out to be much more serious, but it’s too early to talk about that :). Today I want to tell you about the DISC BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER error, which can appear at any time and it is not clear why. This is exactly the error I encountered on that computer. I even took a photo of her, she looks like this:
I'll tell you in order. So I connected this system unit, launched it and am waiting for a miracle :) well, when some error pops up, because something is bound to happen anyway.
A message appeared stating that loading is not possible because there is no Floppy drive, etc. The battery that stores the CMOS memory and boot order simply ran out before complete happiness. Floppy was enabled in the BIOS, but physically disabled. But that doesn't matter. I pressed F1, it seemed like a check and then the error DISC BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.
Yeah, I've never encountered such an error before. But in principle, it is already clear that it says that there is no boot disk.
I rebooted the computer, disconnected that drive (Drive a), set the boot order with HDD in first place and tried to turn on the computer again. But I got this error again.
And then, after about the tenth reboot, one thing caught my eye: when the computer is being tested (POST), the hard drive is not visible in the test results. How is this? And like this:
You see, only one CD/DVD drive was detected, which was connected via IDE, and the hard drive that was connected via SATA was not detected by the computer. This means the cause of the error (in my case) has been determined; it is a problem with the hard drive.
I went into the BIOS and it wasn't there either.
Everything is clear, you need to check the hard one. Well, for starters, I just unplugged it and plugged it into another SATA connector. But the hard one was never detected by the computer, and I saw the error again. Then I decided not to play around and checked it on another computer. I connected it on another computer, via a different SATA cable, but the hard drive was not detected there either. That's how things are.
It means it’s just not working, I don’t know what happened to it, but it clearly needs to be replaced. That's what I told the owner of this computer.
This was the reason for this error in my case. But this does not mean that you also have serious problems from HDD.
Other causes of the “DISC BOOT FAILURE, INSERT...” error
Let's look at a few more popular reasons why this error may appear, and of course, ways to get rid of it.
1. Check to see if there are any flash drives connected to the computer, and if there is a disc in the CD/DVD drive. By the way, I had an interesting case a long time ago. They brought the computer, too, and it won’t start. I started watching it, some error appears (I don’t remember exactly which one). I look, and there’s some kind of disk in the drive. I pulled it out and the computer started up normally. That's how we repair it :).
2. If the battery that stores the CMOS memory runs out, this means that after turning off the computer from the outlet, the BIOS settings will be reset. And of course the computer boot order will be reset. Be sure to replace the battery. Read more in the article.
3. Disconnect the floppy drive. This can be done in the BIOS (read about how to enter BIOS ) .
4. Go into the BIOS and check the system boot order. Install the hard drive in first place. I wrote more about this in the article. Also check if your hard drive is recognized by the computer (I had this problem, if you missed it, read the article first).
5. Check all cables connecting the hard drive and CD/DVD drive. Perhaps something just moved away.
7. If your HDD and drive are connected via IDE, then look at the information on the MASTER and SLAVE jumpers - there may be a problem with them.
That's all, if you have other ways to solve this error, then you can share them in the comments - I will be grateful! Best wishes!
Also on the site:
DISC BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER error [reasons and solution] updated: August 21, 2013 by: admin
Information for the news
Hello, I have a problem, when loading a message appears DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER, I have two hard drives, an old one and a new one, that is, one is an IDE interface, the other is SATA-II.
I decided to disconnect the old one completely, since it was time to retire, so I disconnected it, then turned on the computer and this error appeared. I went into the BIOS (I have Award), and there was a surprise. Not visible new hard drive SATA-II, although I didn’t touch it, I decided to connect the old one IDE-shny disk back and as you guessed it was of little use, now my BIOS does not see both hard drives.
Apparently the moment I disconnected the old hard drive, the BIOS settings were lost. I don’t consider myself inexperienced, I want to figure it out myself, everything that’s written about this error I read it on the Internet and consistently applied it, namely:
- The first boot device in the BIOS is set to the hard drive; in the First Boot Device parameter, the HDD is responsible for the first boot device. I completely disabled the Floppy drive. I changed the CMOS battery on the motherboard, because they say that due to this dead battery, the previously set settings in the BIOS are lost. I reset the BIOS settings to default, but for some reason it didn’t help either. Connection cables hard drive replaced with new ones, also turned off the disk drive just in case, disconnected and connected both hard drives one by one, set the jumper on the old hard drive to three in different ways:MASTER And SLAVE, as well as Cable Select, everything is useless. They also say there is a Hard Disk Drives option in the BIOS, but for some reason I didn’t find it, you can set the primacy in it hard drives(when there are several of them on the computer), if in this option the first one is a hard drive that does not have an operating system, then the error disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter or similar ones are also provided.
Both hard drives are working, I connected them to a friend’s computer, they are detected perfectly, but his BIOS is different and, it seems to me, more understandable - AMI. As a result, I came to the conclusion that somewhere in this interesting and confusing BIOS -Award, there is some setting that I don’t know about and can’t find information on the Internet. On one forum they gave a link to your site, they said it was the best for beginners, detailed articles and good screenshots, but unfortunately I couldn’t find what was right for me, in short, I give up. I’ve read several of your articles: and also, and it seems to me that you probably know the answer. Sergey.
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
Friends, many users, as I noticed, are afraid of BIOS Award and in vain. Nowadays you can figure out everything, you just need desire and perseverance, don’t back down, arm yourself with books, and there are a lot of good articles on the Internet, you just need to find them and choose what you need. The error disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter comes across to me quite often and I, in turn, will try to tell you all the known ways to solve the problem and of course I will explain what exactly helped our reader Sergei in the end.
Old IDE hard drives deserve a separate discussion; very often old 40- and 80-wire cables fail or are not connected correctly, breaking the contacts, you can read our article about this. There is also a separate conversation about jumpers on old IDE hard drives and how to set them correctly, we have two detailed articles about them: BIOS does not see the hard drive or Jumpers on the hard drive (links to them at the beginning of the article, you can read) stop at Let's not do this.
Now let's move on to the BIOS settings, this is where the cause of the error disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter most often lies, what we can do wrong here, we'll look into both existing options BIOS, of which there are two types, namely Award And AMI. I suggest starting with our favorite Award; later in the article we will look at the AMI BIOS settings. Let's choose the option with one SATA-II hard drive in our system unit, but let’s set the settings so that if we had two hard drives, for example another IDE, both of them would be perfectly detected and would work. Let's start with the simple and end with the more complex.
Award BIOS-main window. First of all let's go to the option Advanced BIOS Features:
Here we need a parameter First Boot Device, it is he who assigns the device from which the computer needs to boot; if we do NOT want to boot from the CDROM drive, then in most cases it needs to be set to (HDD-0), which means booting from the hard drive.
Sometimes instead of (HDD-0) there may be a parameter Hard Disk,
In the boot device selection menu, we can also select a flash drive.
And in the AMI - BIOS the option is responsible for this Boot Device Priority, the hard drive should also be set as the first device.
If you have several hard drives in the system unit, then in Award BIOS we need the option Advanced BIOS Features, and in it the parameter Hard Disk Boot Priority.
In AMI-BIOS, if there are several hard drives, the parameter appears Hard Disk Drives,
These options are called differently in different BIOSes, but they have the same function; they are responsible for the primacy of hard drives in the system and, as our reader correctly noted, if a hard drive without an operating system is installed first, then Windows may boot with an error. But even more precisely, the first hard drive should be the hard drive on which the master boot record (MBR) is located - the first sector on the hard drive, on it there is a partition table and a boot loader utility that reads data in this table - from which partition of the hard drive to produce loading Windows, then the information is transferred to the partition with the installed operating system to load it. As we see, in Award BIOS, in the parameter Hard Disk Boot Priority, the first to be displayed is the WDC hard drive, that is, the Western Digital hard drive, that is, according to the rules, the operating system must be installed on it.
It is not difficult to find this Hard Disk Drives option in AMI-BIOS; it is located in the BOOT tab. We look in the BOOT tab and see the item Boot Device Priority (we have three hard drives in the system and the MAXTOR hard drive is the first), this is where Windows is located, by the way, I have the rest hard drives also installed operating systems, but specifically on MAXTOR STM3
the one I installed last is installed - Windows 7 and the master boot record is located on MAXTOR ( MBR). If now instead of MAXTOR you set WDC, that is, a Western Digital hard drive, booting the computer will end with the error disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter or another No hard disk is detected.
Now it’s more complicated, namely, let’s look at where our reader, and many users, make a mistake? Go to the Integrated Peripherals option,
Select an option On-Chip Serial ATA .
Possible values: Disabled,Auto, Combined Mode Enhanced Mode, SATA Only.
This option controls the IDE/SATA controller of the chipset. That is, it decides in which mode to work hard drives in your computer, if you select the wrong operating mode for the hard drives, the BIOS simply will not see them. Here, friends, lies the answer to our question. Why doesn’t our BIOS Award see the hard drive and gives the error: disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter. Now about all the modes in detail.
- Enhanced Mode-sets the controller to an extended mode, allowing it to use all available SATA and IDE channels, respectively, you and I can use hard drives of the SATA, SATA-II and IDE types, all of them will be detected in the BIOS and will be visible to the operating system.
- Combined Mode-this mode shares SATA drives and IDE, but only two SATA channels and one IDE (a total of four devices).
- SATA Only-mode only uses hard drives SATA.
- Auto-automatically sets the required mode based on the type of interface and the number of connected drives. For some reason, this parameter didn’t work for our reader Sergei, after we switched to Combined Mode, his BIOS saw two hard drives, one SATA-II, the other IDE and also a floppy drive.
- Disabled-disables the IDE/SATA controller of the chipset.
So, if you and I have two hard drives installed in the system unit different types or a hard drive and a disk drive of different SATA-II and IDE interfaces, it is better to set the On-Chip Serial ATA option to Enhanced Mode or Combined Mode or Auto(the last option, unfortunately, let us down).
If you only have devices installed in the system unit SATA interface, SATA-II, then you can use SATA mode Only.
We exit the BIOS and save the changes we made.
What other reasons could there be for this error?
If your hard drive is perfectly detected in the BIOS and all settings are set correctly, then try reading the article.
When an IDE hard drive is installed in the system unit, we check whether the IDE controller itself is enabled in the BIOS; for more details, see the article No hard disk is detected.
How did the story end?