Media Test Failure, Please check Cable.

19543261

Media Test Failure, Please check Cable.

This only happens going to the boot screen. After the intel splash screen, everything goes black. No error. No windows splash screen. Just black. Computer stays running.

The BIOS recognises the HDD, as do various boot CDs, w.7 installation disc detects past installation, as does xp disc. SO it's able to read the HDD, why would it say the media device isnt detected? I replaced the connections, blew on them, switched em around; nothing.

If the HDD flat out didnt work, I wouldn't even be able to boot CD's. In the bios, at the boot sequence tab, it has floppy listed after dvddrive, then HDD second last. I don't have a floppy drive; never have. I can't change the boot sequence. I click enter, navigate with arrow keys, use select again to confirm, and the sequence does not change, no matter which device I highlighted.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

cgarrad

Use f10 to save the new boot config

19543261

It's not that I cant save it, it just doesn't change in the first place.

cgarrad

use plus and minus to move them around or page up/down

Capt'n Midnight

It means you don't have a network cable plugged in to the computer

as to why they use a very confusing message, go figure


Go into the BIOS and change boot order so that Network / NIC / PXE is not ahead of hard drive

19543261

I don't quite follow. Right now the order is: DVD, HDD, Ethernet, Floppy.

Edit: What the hell is Zip Emulation? It has it at floppy. Should I change it to HDD, or...?

Capt'n Midnight

it's not booting from the HDD

what brand of PC (eg F12 gives boot menu on Dell )
what OS in case boot sector or mbr needs to be fixed

19543261

Not a brand. I put it together myself. Intel cpu+mobo. F2 gives BIOS and 12 boot screen. XP SP3.

19543261

I'm now running live CD of Linux Mint. I ran a few tests, and the HDD is in perfect working order. I can even access and play/read files from XP folders within the Mint OS. Meaning it's hardly a mechanical failure of the disc. So I should be able to fix it by using Mint, right?

Is there anything I can check for now? Like edit any boot files or such?

Snowbat

Have you tried fixmbr and fixboot?
http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/fix-mbr-xp-vista/

19543261

I have, thanks. I'm actually in the process of downloading an ISO of XP. The copys I have are edited versions, and there's no recovery console option. The problem is, I'm not so sure I have any blank discs laying around...

Edit: I just wasted my last CD....For some reason the keyboard isn't responding, so I can't press R. The keyboard works on my w7 disc and some other boot discs. A bad burn, I guess. Urgh.

19543261

When I attempt to fix the MBR, I get a warning.

**CAUTION **
This computer appears to have a non-standard or an invalid master boot record....

It goes on to advise against continuing because doing so may render all the partitions on the hardrive inaccessible. I tried a number of other things like bootfix, it said it was "successful", but no luck on restart.

19543261

Okay I ran fixmbr and still no progress. I'm siting here looking at c:/windows right now. I can access all the media on it and everything. This is so frustrating.

Edit: Solved.

Snowbat

There's also fixboot (fixmbr writes a new Master Boot Record, fixboot writes a new Volume Boot Record).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovery_console

Does Linux Mint have the same Disk Utility as Ubuntu? It would be worth checking there for SMART errors.
http://karuppuswamy.com/wordpress/2010/05/19/how-to-predict-hard-disk-failure-in-ubuntu-with-3-clicks/

19543261

I also attempted fixboot beforehand, but with no results.

Mint has something very similar, if it's not the very same thing, called Gparted. It was the first thing I ran on Mint. Said the drive was healthy.

Anyway, everything's back up and running again. Things are pretty messy though. Its still detetecting an old w7 boot screen for some reason, and there's all the crap and bloat installed again that I had escaped. I'm probably going to do a fresh install at some point after all (Maybe run on just Mint for a while....? Who knows!)

Thank you cgarrad, Capt'n Midnight and Snowbat. I very much appreciate the help. Take care.