Hard Disk not bootable

I have an 80 gig Maxtor SATA hard disk with XP installed, but it will not boot. If I run XP on a second drive, it will boot and the Maxtor appears as D:, and all the files show. I have tried running a 'repair' install from the XP CD, and it succeeds, but the disk still remains 'unbootable'.

The message is:

reboot and select proper boot device
or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key

I have also tried the recovery console from the XP CD, but cannot get it to work.
Can Someone help please.

David L.

 

when you installed xp on the SATA drive did you install the sata controllers that are necessary to boot xp??

xp will not install without them

 

The drive used to boot to XP. on the SATA, and it is recognized by XP when the machine is booted to the XP CD, as an existing XP installation as windows XP pro. I've been told by someone else that it is an issue with the boot records or boot sector of the drive.
Thank You for any advice You can give Me.
David

 

Is your install CD OEM?

Some of them will not do repair installs properly.

Did you get as far as getting a command line prompt in repair console? You will need Administrator password to fix the boot sector. (leave the field blank if there is no password).

If so, at command line prompt, enter

bootcfg /rebuild

and press return

Then enter

fixboot

and press return

then enter

fixmbr

and press return.

Allow these commands to execute, and await return to command prompt again, then restart to boot into XP as normal

 

follow priscus's advice and give us an update on the exact steps you took and what happened at each step, please

 

I ran through these functions in the recovery console, but to no avail. I do now have the rebuild function entries down pat. The rebuild requires options to be entered and the fixboot requires a drive designation i.e. fixboot c: running the XP repair install clears the list of boot record entries and allows Me to add an entry to the list, and I also use the bootcfg /default command to set the entry as the default.....perhaps I am using the wrong os information on the rebuild command...I am using c:\windows and /fastdetect /no execute=optin... perhaps these options are wrong?
I hammered on it a few hours yesterday and last night. I'm going to try some combinations and observe the behavior for hints as to what it's doing. Elizabeth23 mentions drivers...I can add/delete files from the drive while booted on the second drive, so I can add them to the drive if they are missing somehow.
PS the cd is XP Pro as an upgrade from 98.
Any additional help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks, David

 

I have no experience of upgrade cd, so sorry, I'm out of it.

ps When I run recovery console, if my recollection is correct, it asks me to select the instance of XP that the action will apply to, rather than requiring me to designate disk - perhaps the upgrade version differs.

 

was the install cd an upgrade cd??
you must install the os that you upgraded from before using an upgrade disk
what exactly does your disk say??

A typical simple example

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect


===================

this is what my bootloader looks like I have xp pro and the recovery console installed

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons


===================

 

Thank You both very much for Your suggestions! I struggled with this thing for way too many hours and the only thing that worked was to reformat the drive and restore from an old backup. I also have to apologize for coming on here and asking for help, only to disappear for so long! I have been busy with other matters and have limited access to an internet connection. I suppose part of My problem is that I'm an old mainframe guy and worked large telephone switches with SCSI drives for many years, not PCs. Here's a synopsis of what I have...There are 3 drives in the machine, which is an Asus P4C800-E motherboard with 2GIG of RAM, 2 IDE disks; 10GIG and 20GIG, and the 80GIG SATA drive. The 80GIG is the main drive and the others were used as onboard backups using Norton Ghost, however I ended up with only an old 2009 backup on the 10GIG, which is what I used to get the machine back in operation. I have 2 DVD backups dated 2012, which would be current for the install, but neither is restorable! In trying Your suggestions, I never found anything like what Elizabeth23 has in Her last post. I am out of time for now, but will write more later if You're interested.
Thanks again!
Sincerely David L.

 

if you go to folder options and have all files unhidden, then you will be able to view the boot.bac, (backup boot) and / or you can go to my computer and right click and choose properties go to advanced tab, choose startup and recovery, then you will be able to see a button which says edit and you can then proceed to edit your boot file as needed:

below is a pix of folder options:

 

Go into your BIOS, find the SATA controller options, and set it from AHCI mode to IDE mode.

This tripped me up on two occasions.