Abit VH6 / VH6-II, DISK BOOT FAILURE - INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER (requires CD to boot) \ VOGONS

Abit VH6 / VH6-II, DISK BOOT FAILURE - INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER (requires CD to boot)

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First post, by cde

Posted on 2021-07-24, 20:56

cde Offline

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I am having this aforementioned error message when trying to start anything on the hard drive, the MBR is not read and executed. This issue happens with two motherboards, Abit VH6 and VH6-II, updated with the latest BIOS and also recapped.

I initially thought it was due to the mSATA to IDE 128 GB SSD I'm using, however even with a classic hard drive, even when limited to 32 GB, does not work. Switching the modes between normal (CHS), large (LRG) and LBA does nothing.

What is really puzzling is that if I let the Windows XP CD-ROM inside, it prints the message to Press any key, then after a while defaults to load the OS - and it works perfectly fine! Windows XP starts without issue. Without the CD, I get DISK BOOT FAILURE.

Does this problem seem familiar?

Last edited by cde on 2021-07-24, 21:31. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 4, by mike_canada

Posted on 2021-07-24, 21:04

mike_canada Offline

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This could be obvious, but did you enter the system bios and setup the hard drive there? Some bioses can autodetect hard drives. And did you make sure that hard drive is enabled in the boot order options?

Reply 2 of 4, by cde

Posted on 2021-07-24, 21:11

cde Offline

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Yes, it is indeed enabled in the boot options (as HDD0). The BIOS correctly detects it when set to auto, or manual (CHS/LRG/LBA).

Reply 3 of 4, by cde

Posted on 2021-07-24, 21:26

cde Offline

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Well I found a simple yet slightly unsatisfying solution: when switching the HDD and CD drive to the secondary IDE, the BIOS manages to read and boot from the HDD. Very strange and probably a BIOS bug.

EDIT: apparently someone else got the same issue a long time ago with an Abit IS7-V2: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/requi … d-drive.465437/

Reply 4 of 4, by Horun

Posted on 2021-07-25, 01:01

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Thanks for info ! Have nothing to add except sort of a bummer as most 848 chipset boards are fairly good (not on par with 865 but still good IMHO)

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

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