If you have tried boot ini and MBR fixes then it would seem to me that there is something in the BIOS knackered to not boot from the HD.
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Weeden Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 5:25 AM To: hardware@hardwaregroup.com Subject: Re: [H] Vista install lacking boot files Okay this problem has returned. Vista crapped out on me after only a month and I needed to do a fresh reinstall (kept rebooting everytime a DVD was inserted or locking up every 15 min). So this time I pulled my RAID card and only had my boot drive attachced when I installed. But on reboot it stopped at the "loading DMI" part of the boot process again unless I put the Vista install DVD in the drive. Then it would load Vista no prob. I installed the EasyBCD proggie linked to this thread and tried just about every option, including "write MBR" and "recreate missing/deleted boot files". This is the readout from EasyBCD: Windows Boot Manager -------------------- identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795} device partition=C: description Windows Boot Manager locale en-US inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e} default {7cb80d1e-458b-11dd-af8d-aa046b8ac7f2} displayorder {7cb80d1e-458b-11dd-af8d-aa046b8ac7f2} toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d} timeout 30 Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {7cb80d1e-458b-11dd-af8d-aa046b8ac7f2} device partition=C: path \Windows\system32\winload.exe description Microsoft Windows Vista locale en-US inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7} bootdebug Yes osdevice partition=C: systemroot \Windows resumeobject {7cb80d1f-458b-11dd-af8d-aa046b8ac7f2} nx OptIn pae ForceDisable sos No debug No Partition C is the correct drive to boot from. I think the problem is that the bootloader itself is not being called after POST, which is why it's hanging at the DMI screen. Again, I did a complete re-install so the problem isn't a second hard drive. Any suggestions? Honestly, I can't believe that Vista has this sort of problem and I can't believe I haven't heard more people bitching about it. While I have run into the XP "no boot device found" error due to having the wrong driver or messed up boot.ini path, it was at least fixable with the tools provided by Windows and was easy to avoid. ---- Brian On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 2:25 PM, Alex <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > yes it's a common problem. quite irritating. > > http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 > Grab EasyBCD and re-write the MBR to your hard drive. > > > On Tue, 27 May 2008 14:11:01 -0400, Brian Weeden wrote > > Just installed my first Vista system (Ultimate, using it for my HTPC) > > and have a weird problem. The install process never copied over > > the boot files - the system will not boot unless the install DVD is > > in the drive. Otherwise it just hangs at the DMI screen after the > > BIOS post. I nuked it and did a second install and the same problem > > happened. > > > > I don't know anything about Vista - is this a common problem? What's > > the fix? With an XP system I would normally just copy over ntldr > > and make sure the boot.ini file is correct but I don't see those > > anywhere on the Vista system. > > > > ---- > > Brian > > No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 8.0.101 / Virus Database: 270.4.3/1524 - Release Date: 6/28/2008 7:42 PM
