Windows XP MRB Help

[RSO]

Help me.... My system was running just fine until about 5 am this morning. Came downstairs to discover that my system had rebooted for some reason and I had an "invalid system disk" error. I rebooted and noted that the system HD (my WD 120 GB SE) was not recognized by the IDE controller. Played around with the cables and rebooted and it recognized but during the reboot I still got the "invalid system disk" error. Initiated a CDROM boot up with the Win XP disk and use console recovery and got back into the OS just fine. However whenever I tried to reboot using the HD only or taking out the Win XP CDROM from the CD rom drive (i.e. leaving the boot order CD, HD rather than HD first, not that it mattered), I would get an "invalid system disk error". Only when I had the CD (win xp) in the drive and had the boot order CD, HD would I be able to get into the OS. I do not have to initiate a CD rom boot (manually) or console recovery, but the CD is "search" prior to the initiation of the OS. Once in the OS everything seems OK "normal". I'm thinking that my MBR got hosed somehow. Does that make sense? Is there anything I can try short of reinstallation of the OS? Any help would be greatly appreciated. System profile below + PS Enermax 431W.

 

[bacillus]

you should be able to go to the recovery console after booting from the xp cd & choose fixmbr

 

[RSO]

If my MBR is damage/etc. Can I still boot up into Windows? This is my current situation, that I can still boot into Windows XP, the only problem is that I have to have the Windows xp Cd in the cdrom drive when I boot.

 

[cleverhandle]

This isn't an MBR problem, it's hardware. I don't what exactly, but it sounds like the BIOS is somehow getting a different view of your drives depending on whether a CD is present or not. Certainly it shouldn't, but it is. I'd be suspicious of that PCI ATA card. Maybe the ATA card needs just that little bit of time in the CD scan to get itself together and receive a BIOS address. I don't know... it's weird, but it's definitely not a hosed MBR.

 

[RSO]

Thanks for the info. I currently have the my system HD (WD) on Primary on the MB IDE controller along with a Maxtor 40GB HD. I have my Creative DVD drive on the secondary IDE on the MB and the rest of the drives populate the ATA controller. I have the windows xp cd in the creative Drive. I cannot have it in the lite on drive cuz windows xp will not boot to the cd (at least not for me) with on a cd rom drive hooked up to the pci card. Anyway. would a clear cmos resolve this or do I have to reinstall the entire os again . I'm prepared to do this if necessary (also an excuse to pick up another 120 GB HD cuz I told the wife I'd need it to fix the system ). Anyway don't really want to do a reinstall but if that seem to be the only solution other than my inelegant solution of just having xp disc in the cdrom drive during bootup then that's that. All thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Just a thought, my brother indicated that this could be something to do with MS copy protection/activation and if I simply adjust the cd key and reactive it might solve it ... any truth to this. I am not using a copied version of xp on this system. I have the "sunshine program xp pro disc... the $40 one from way back".

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: RSO
I currently have the my system HD (WD) on Primary on the MB IDE controller along with a Maxtor 40GB HD. I have my Creative DVD drive on the secondary IDE on the MB and the rest of the drives populate the ATA controller. I have the windows xp cd in the creative Drive. I cannot have it in the lite on drive cuz windows xp will not boot to the cd (at least not for me) with on a cd rom drive hooked up to the pci card.

Your layout is typical. That shouldn't be causing any problems.

Anyway. would a clear cmos resolve this or do I have to reinstall the entire os again . I'm prepared to do this if necessary (also an excuse to pick up another 120 GB HD cuz I told the wife I'd need it to fix the system ). Anyway don't really want to do a reinstall but if that seem to be the only solution other than my inelegant solution of just having xp disc in the cdrom drive during bootup then that's that. All thoughts and comments are appreciated.

A reinstall of XP will not help, at least not permanently. I doubt a CMOS reset would either, but that's at least worth a try along with resetting the configuration data. Your problem starts before you even get to an operating system. Your BIOS does not seem to address its disks consistently - it's looking for an MBR at one address (the correct one) if there's a CD present and somewhere else otherwise. But the MBR itself is perfectly fine. If it weren't you wouldn't be able to boot off the hard drive at all, ever. Check for BIOS updates if they exist, but mostly I'd suggest trying a different ATA card. It's by far the most likely culprit.

Just a thought, my brother indicated that this could be something to do with MS copy protection/activation and if I simply adjust the cd key and reactive it might solve it ... any truth to this.

None whatsoever. As noted above, you're dealing with a very strange, but very low-level problem involving the BIOS and disk addressing. Activation is many levels above that.

 

[RSO]

Thanks for the info. I'll remove the ATA card and see what happens. I guess I can live with "just a 120 and a 40 for now" . Seems to make the most sense since. Just wanted to thank you for the responses "cleverhandle"