I have a computer running XP Pro which recently started misbehaving. When I try to start up the computer, I get the following message: "Disk Boot Failure, insert system disk and press enter". I have not added any new programs or made any changes to the computer that could have caused this problem. The computer would boot up and run in Safe Mode. I gave up on trying to fix the problem so I installed a new hard drive and reinstalled windows. With the new hard drive and fresh install of windows, everything works as it should. I then loaded a backup of the old hard drive that was made during December 2007 (thinking that an old backup would be safer) thinking that the boot problem would not reappear. My reasoning was wrong. I get the same error message. So I assume that the source of the error is not the battery or the hard drive. Any suggestions on what I might try? I would like to be able to fix and reinstall the old hard drive.

What exactly do you mean by loading a backup? Did you reinstall the old drive itself?

If so your BIOS might be trying to boot the old drive and not the new one.

If you installed a backup onto your new drive then the Boot Sector might have been corrupted.

You should not have an issue installing the old drive as a slave or secondary SATA drive in order to extract data. However it sound like the old OS is corrupted.

After installing a new hard drive and reloading XP, I no longer had the boot failure problem.

Leaving the new hard drive installed, I thought that I could restore the old operating system and all of my files from a previous backup (made in December 2007) which was on an external drive.

Could the Boot Sector have been corrupted back in December 2007 and not start causing problems until November 2009?

I was trying to restore the computer with a backup that had been made before the computer had a problem.

The old hard drive is no longer in the computer.

How can I fix the boot sector on the old hard drive?

Thanks

How did you create the backup? With XP? Or with other software? Was it an Image backup?

If you backed up the entire system in an image you essentially overwrote the boot sector.

You can try booting your XP CD into the Recovery Console and try the command FIXBOOT and if that doesn't work try FIXMBR

Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console for advanced users

The backup that I used to restore the files and programs was made by using Windows XP backup program.

I have tried running the FIXBOOT. I will try running the FIXMBR.

I deleted the Boot.ini files and rebuilt the Boot.ini files using the Recovery console.

I no longer get the "Boot Disk Error".

The computer now gets to the Windows XP screen and after thirty seconds or so,it will reboot.

If I install the hard drive with the problem as a slave, the antivirus software seems to be scanning both hard drives. Do you think it is scanning all of the files on the problem hard drive?

Using the Recovery Console, I ran FIXMR which replaced the FIXMB.

Did not fix problem.

Using the Recovery Console, I ran FIXBOOT and deleted and replaced NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM.

Did not fix problem.

Any suggestions....

Can I set the problem hard drive up as a slave and run a virus scan on both hard drives?

If it were I: I would remove the old drive and reinstall XP again on the new drive.

Next install the old drive as a slave. Now you can run scans on it as well as you should be able to access your old documents.

I would not try that backup again. If you did have a virus when you backed up you backed up the virus as well.

Sorry for the delay but I am only currently available in the US Eastern evenings.

Thanks....

I will post the results of the virus scan.

I have Norton Internet Security loaded on the Master Hard Drive(New Hard Drive) and the problem drive mounted as a slave drive.

I ran a full scan and it appeared that the slave drive was being scanned. I do not know if it the virus scan included the boot files on the slave drive.

Does anyone know if I accomplished a complete scan of the slave drive?

In any case, no viruses were detected.

Still unable to get to the welcome screen on the problem drive.

I would say yes it did a full scan.

In general the boot sector is only on one drive. This is why when you install multiple OS' the last install commands the boot sector.

My theory was your backup overwrote the Boot Sector. You can see what drive the boot sector is on via Disk Management:

Right click My Computer then click Manage then Disk Management.

Were youi able to access your documents with the problem drive slaved?