PC has been working fine but suddenly has decided not to work. I swapped the power supply and now get the message:

boot failure

In BIOS IDE Channel 0 Master shows [none]. Hard drive appears now in IDE Channel 2 Master. This is a SATA hard drive.

How do I get the drive to appear in Channel 0?

Any help would be appreciated.

What was happening in the first place? When it decided not to work?

What made you suspect the PSU?

Did you change any connections on the motherboard besides the power?

Is the SATA drive plugged into the same slot it was before?

If the drive is detected in the BIOS, no matter what position, you should be able to adjust the BIOS to boot that channel.

Thanks for your reply.

What was happening in the first place? When it decided not to work?

When switched on, monitor showed "Philips" screen but nothing else happened. Orange light on front remained on and constant.

What made you suspect the PSU?

PSU had been making noises.

Did you change any connections on the motherboard besides the power?

No, not that I'm aware of.


Is the SATA drive plugged into the same slot it was before?

There are two slots and I have tried both.

Did you try changing the boot channel in the BIOS?

Do you know the make and model of the motherboard?

hhhmmmm Not sure of the make and model of the motherboard.

I have tried changing the boot channel but cannot find how to get channel 3 to come up as primary.

I have got another hard drive that is recognised as secondary. This had XP on it but when I first turned pc on after replacing PSU, I was asked to put in OS disk, so I put the Vista disk in hoping to repair the SATA drive. Hadn't realised at this stage that it was the secondary drive only showing up. Ended up loading Vista but cannot register it as I'm told it's unregistered. I presume it's because it was already loaded on SATA drive, but that's not being recognised. Cannot load this drive with XP any more. Hope this makes sense.

I wish I could see the MB manual for the BIOS options.

Look near the graphics card slot for a label. It is usually quite apparent.

Next let us know what your final desire is.

You have two hard drives? One has XP and the other has Vista?

Do you want it this way? Or do you want XP only or Vista only?

Were both these OS originally on this computer?

Are you unable to tell Vista that you will register later? Usually you have 30 days to do this.

During the install the OS tags itself to the motherboard. That is the source of the duplicate error.

Also Vista overwrites XP's boot sector so if you want a dual boot you would need to repair the XP boot sector.

Are you saying one drive is SATA and one is IDE?

Sorry if I am confusing but the most important at this point is try to ID the motherboard.

If you can start Vista you can run our scan which is linked at the top of the forum page.

Then tell us if you want XP or Vista or both.

Also are both your XP CD and your Vista DVD retail discs or are they OEM (manufacturers copies)?

Look near the graphics card slot for a label. It is usually quite apparent.

661FX-M7

Next let us know what your final desire is.

I would prefer to keep the SATA drive as master, and hopefully keep all files with Vista.

You have two hard drives? One has XP and the other has Vista?

Yes that's correct.

Do you want it this way? Or do you want XP only or Vista only?

Only really want Vista

Were both these OS originally on this computer?

Computer originally came with XP on IDE drive. I purchased Vista and SATA drive over a year ago and only used IDE drive for storage.

Are you unable to tell Vista that you will register later? Usually you have 30 days to do this.

No wasn't given that option.

During the install the OS tags itself to the motherboard. That is the source of the duplicate error.

Also Vista overwrites XP's boot sector so if you want a dual boot you would need to repair the XP boot sector.

Are you saying one drive is SATA and one is IDE?


Yes, only use IDE for storage of previous files.

Sorry if I am confusing but the most important at this point is try to ID the motherboard.

If you can start Vista you can run our scan which is linked at the top of the forum page.


Cannot start Vista on SATA drive. Boot up just ignores it.

Then tell us if you want XP or Vista or both.


Just Vista on SATA drive.

Also are both your XP CD and your Vista DVD retail discs or are they OEM (manufacturers copies)?

XP was OEM, Vista retail.

Hope this is the information you require.

I will add that on one occasion while trying to sort the problem out, I did manage to start up on the SATA drive and everything appeared to be working normally. I thought it best to run the antivirus and it was still running late at night so decided to leave it running. In the morning the computer had restarted and was back to the original problem of Phillips screen and constant orange light. Have since been able to access IDE drive but only as far are registering Vista with other problems as discribed.

Your help is very much appreciated.

Thanks for the details. I am at the end of my day but will be back within like 12 hours or so.

This would appear to be the motherboard:

ECS Web Site

I will download the manual after I get some sleep here.

If you are experimenting in the mean time I'd suggest disconnecting the IDE drive. Try to cut down the BIOS options. In other words simplify as much as possible.

You may need to "wipe" that SATA drive prior to reinstalling Vista but again I get ahead of myself.

Be back after some sleep.

Many thanks. : )

Update:

I did as you suggested and disconnected the IDE drive, restarted and again got the Disk Boot Failure message. I restarted using the Vista disk and clicked on repair.

Went into startup repair and got this message:

Root cause found:
The partition table does not have a vailid System Partition.

Repair Action:
Partition table repair

Really hope I don't lose my files, but fear things aren't looking too good. : (