Boot Failure

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  sempro on 19/02/2015 - 16:40

  +1

  Does not compute.

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  [Deactivated] on 19/02/2015 - 16:48

  Compute does not.

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  bonezAU on 19/02/2015 - 16:50

  +1

  Yes, it sounds like your HDD. The first 3 screens are running through standard boot checks, then it attempts to boot from a network before attempting your HDD. Do you have access to another computer where you can create a bootable USB thumb drive?

  tl;dr If you aren't too technical you may need to get the assistance of someone who is.

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  xyron on 19/02/2015 - 17:02

  +2

  make sure theres no external USB drives plugged in on boot or any CD/DVDs in the drives.

  I get this problem when I leave a USB plugged in that isn't designed to be booted from.

  Otherwise, yes, your hard disk/SSD has likely shat itself. hope you had backups :)

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  Davo1111 on 19/02/2015 - 19:24

  +1

  Unplug everything except one stick of ram, the hdd, and keyboard. Does it boot? insert a linux disc, swap power to the CD drive (and disconnect the hdd). Does it boot?

  Sounds like HDD, but you'll know if that's the case if it boots the DVD

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  scrimshaw on 19/02/2015 - 22:49

  +3

  For Realtek RTL 811OS/8169S Gigabit Ethernet Controller v1.01 (030820)
  CLENT MAC ADDR: 00 0C 76 BF 37 5E GUID: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
  DHCP …./
  PXE-E53 No Boot File Name Received
  PXE-MOF: Exiting PX-MOF

  This is your computer attempting to boot via network card— it's called Pre eXecution Environment (pronounced Pixie)

  What is happening is your computer isn't able to find the hard drive, so it checks the next available boot medium which will likely be NIC (network boot) and since it didn't receive anything on the network card, it next attempts to check for the presence of a legacy floppy diskette drive which obviously, wouldn't exist on a modern PC.

  So basically, your HDD is not detected, indicating the following probable issues

  1. The HDD is not powered or is not properly connected to the mobo. If this is a desktop, unplug and replug the cables, making sure that the SATA cable you're connecting is not faulty (if it is faulty, buy a new SATA cable)

  2. If this is a laptop, you will need to find out of the drive is still working by powering up the machine and listening for the vibrations of the HDD. If it is completely silent, it's pushing up daisies. (Obviously, an SSD will not vibrate, but if your computer won't pick up the SSD in the BIOS menu, it's likely pushing up daisies)

  I should also mention that a functional HDD should also show up in the list of bootable devices of your BIOS/UEFI. On most PC's pressing F12 when you boot your computer invokes a list of devices you can boot from. If your hard disk has completely dissapeared from the list… you can probably start panicking and wonder if your data is still safe.

  You can attempt any of the following to troubleshoot a problematic drive that cannot be detected by your system

  1) Salvage the contents HDD by hooking the drive to a different computer via USB connection, click here for a guide on how, and then using Spinrite or GetDataBack software to attempt data recovery. If you're lucky, the drive may still work (could be just a corrupt sector on your HDD) and you can get some of your data back.

  2) Pay boatloads of cash to get your data recovered by a Data recovery and forensics business.

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  aretsa9 on 20/02/2015 - 12:53

  Thanks a million everyone for taking the time to help. As you've all guessed, I'm not technically inclined so I will try to check out all suggestions over the weekend and will most likely come back with many questions next week unless I get really lucky!!
  Yes, I do have backups of all docs except, of course, one critical doc :(