Dear sir,

I have a problem. when i start my computer sometimes it starts perfectly, but sometimes it shows hard disk boot failure message, boot from atpi-cdrom message. can you pls explain me what this message means.

i have windows 98 and windows xp installed on my pc
Also when it boots perfectly, and I select windows 98 to start, it starts in safe mode directly. can you pls tell me what is the problem

regards,
Jinal

Since you have a dual boot machine, I suggest you try to repair the XP installation first. This may clear up the boot problems. Set your bios so the CDROM is the first boot device. Boot with the XP CD in the CDROM. Choose "Repair existing XP installation".

As far as Windows starting in Safe Mode, see if this article helps. Post back with your results.

'Hard disk boot failure' could also mean that, intermittently, the BIOS isn't detecting the hard disk at all. As it is expecting to boot from the hard disk but it cannot find it, you get the 'failure' message and it gives you the option to boot from the next device in the boot sequence list - in this case, the CDROM drive.

Boot into Windows 98 in normal mode, give it a couple of extra minutes to make sure everthing has initialised properly and then restart the PC. Reboot again into Windows 98 and, if it shut down OK the previous time, then it should load straight into Normal mode (not Safe Mode) without any Scandisk messages etc. Once it has done that successfully, run Scandisk on the hard drive (all partitions if you have more than one) and make sure that you choose the Thorough option. This will do a surface scan to detect any physical defects on the hard disk. It is likely to take several hours so you may want to leave it running overnight.

If that finds no problems, have a look in the Computer Help Tutorials section of this forum. I have written a couple of articles about getting the BIOS to detect the hard disks properly, though they were written to address repeated problems rather than intermittent issues.

Top of my list of suspects for the cause of the problem are:
1. Bad sectors on the hard disk
2. Loose / faulty IDE cable
3. As Dan advised, some kind of Windows / boot file problem.

Let us know how you get on

Originally Posted by DJNafey

'Hard disk boot failure' could also mean that, intermittently, the BIOS isn't detecting the hard disk at all. As it is expecting to boot from the hard disk but it cannot find it, you get the 'failure' message and it gives you the option to boot from the next device in the boot sequence list - in this case, the CDROM drive.

As such it can also be due a CMOS battery.This was in my case and replacing a new battery solved my problem.