Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter. Has the disk really failed?

The dreaded disk boot failure message is a message that most of us would not want to see on our computer.


The client's computer started up with the message "disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter". They did say they'd seen a few error messages appear before this one.

A good lesson here is if you see unexpected messages immediately do a backup of your important data to an external device. With one disk I had enough time to copy off the client's data before it failed entirely.

Before writing off the hard disk I remove the hard disk and test it using another computer. In this case the hard disk was not able to be seen by another computer so the disk had failed.

What I found particularly interesting is when I installed a new hard disk that had not been formatted I received exactly the same message. This is a good lesson not to assume the disk has failed and always test a faulty disk.

One disk I had I couldn't tell if the disk was failing or not so had not trust in the disk. This can be where there's a trade-off of time over the cost of a new hard disk. Hard disks are not expensive and time can quickly mount up. In computer support often decisions have to be made which is more about a cost effective solution for the client. Whilst it may be possible to repair an issue, sometimes it isn't cost effective to do so. This may mean purchasing a new part, or even a new computer.

Next time you see the disk boot failure message, make sure you have the hard disk tested first before assuming the hard disk has completely failed. Over the years I've been able to recover data for clients from disks others couldn't. Assume the worst and hope for the best.

Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for IT support.
Also www.Computer-Repairs.Melbourne.

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