Dell 1525 doesn't boot w/o OS install disk inserted into optical drive

[CDsDontBurn]

I'm working on this Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop for a client of mine and I've already gotten Windows Vista installed on it and everything. I get both service packs installed and most of the drivers installed as well. So far only the chipset, display, LAN, WiFi, audio, and built-in modem drivers are installed. I still need to install drivers for other misc. Dell related stuff.

So basically what is happening is what I described in the title of the thread. The system will only boot if the Vista install disk is inserted into the optical drive. If I remove it, it will give me an error saying "No boot disk found. Please insert boot disk and try again".

I am thinking that the SATA driver must not have taken when I did the install for whatever reason. The weird part about it though is that the install process NEVER asked for a SATA driver to be installed. This is what has me confused about this whole thing right now.

Is there anything that can be done about this that will allow the system to boot up no problem? I don't mind reinstalling Vista if I have to. There's nothing really of importance on this machine that will keep me from performing another installation.

[Victor]

did you go into the bios and set the initial boot as hd and choose the hd to boot?

[CDsDontBurn]

Of course!

Or even if I hit the F12 key on POST to choose a bootable device, if I choose the HDD, it will give me this same problem.

[Blacksmith1]

sounds like the install never set up te bootloader. Is this a brand new unit or was it working before?

[CDsDontBurn]

It's not new. It's probably 2 - 3 yrs old.

Somebody else had looked at it before me. Whoever it was left a note saying that the original issue was a BSOD related to hiusb.sys or something like that. Whatever they did to try and fix it made, it worse. Basically, the partition/volume had been damaged to an unrecoverable state by the time I got the laptop. Getting the data off the drive took over 24hrs (I kept getting errors I wasn't there for to clear/by-pass otherwise it would have been about 8 - 10hrs) using a data recovery program.

[CDsDontBurn]

Ok, so I had this "Idea" that maybe I was having this issue because the SATA settings in the BIOS. It was set to AHCI and not IDE/ATA mode in the BIOS, so I set it to IDE/ATA mode to see what that would do. Knowing I would have to do another install, I did it anyways. There's nothing really on this machine for me to not want to get another install going. Changing from AHCI to IDE/ATA mode did nothing.

It's a long shot, but tomorrow I will put this HDD in another machine and check to see if the partition is set to "Active". By default it should be, but I'm just going to make sure it is.

[Blacksmith1]

run a diagnostic on the hdd if you can. i had one that caused me similar problems back in the days of 98/me. just a few hundred bad blocks the sys kept writing to on load..... (wild guess time) it may be the m/b hdd controler is breaking down?? it sucks this is a laptop. makes hard ware diagnostics a bit of a problem since you can't do parts swaps as easily.

[CDsDontBurn]

It's a Seagate HDD, so I'll run Seagate SeaTools on the HDD in a few minutes here to check out the HDD. Then I'll do a low level format. I might also try another HDD entirely since I have a couple spare HDDs lying around I could try installing Windows to.

If nothing works, then I might say that the HDD controller is bad. I might just burn them a copy of my Vista disk to keep in the drive for boot purposes only too, lol.

[Blacksmith1]

whatever works....

[CDsDontBurn]

Well, I just tried installing Vista on to a spare 160GB Toshiba drive I have and nothing. I still need the disk inserted in order to boot into the OS.

I'm now thinking that this is either a controller issue or driver issue. If it's a driver issue, I need to find a way to load the SATA driver during the OS install process.

[Blacksmith1]

I would think it would work without a special driver as long a the bios supports it. I don't recall ever having a driver issue with an sata boot disk... is there a way to do a diagnostic of the controler itself?

[CDsDontBurn]

Since the HDD that came with the laptop was a Seagate drive, I used Seagate Seatools utility yesterday and ran the tests on the HDD and the controller. The controller came back fine but the HDD said it had some bad sectors.

But now that I installed the OS on a spare Toshiba HDD I have, now I know that the issue is not the Seagate HDD the laptop came with nor the controller according to Seatools utility. So, I'm thinking now that it will be the SATA driver needs to be installed during OS install process. I just gotta find out how to do it since it doesn't ask for a driver to be installed during the OS install process.

[Blacksmith1]

load it during the part where it asks if you want/need to laod any 3rd party or raid drivers? it's one of the "hit F#" messages during the boot from cd setup. don't remember exactly where other than right near the begining.....unless that's one of the things they removed to "improve" vista over XP.

is it really loading the OS to the drive? can you start the OS after loading from CD? if so then i would go look at the bootstrap before you load again, because it can obviously see the drive if it's loading to it.
other Idea is make sure that, if there is one, the setting in bios is enabled to boot from the HDD. check boot order etc. (wish I had the bios in front of me so i could go thru it to see what settings it has.)
I know you probably did this, but you got me going now. so it's any, and all ideas.

[CDsDontBurn]

load it during the part where it asks if you want/need to laod any 3rd party or raid drivers? it's one of the "hit F#" messages during the boot from cd setup. don't remember exactly where other than right near the begining.....unless that's one of the things they removed to "improve" vista over XP.

In Vista & win7, when you go to select a drive to install the OS to, there is a box you can click that says "load driver". You click that to load the SATA/RAID driver(s) in Vista & win7. In winXP, you press the "F6" key when briefly prompted.

Here, I'm loading Vista and I found/remembered about the "load driver" box shortly after making my last post here.

is it really loading the OS to the drive? can you start the OS after loading from CD? if so then i would go look at the bootstrap before you load again, because it can obviously see the drive if it's loading to it.

Yes, the OS is installing to the correct drive/partition I have been selecting. I have left the Dell "Recovery" partition in tact, but I have deleted all the files from it. I am leaving it because I will be copying all of the system drivers, large Windows Update files like Vista sp1 and sp2, and other misc. software I install as standard procedure. I will also be making a ghost image of this drive and put in the recovery partition if it is ever needed later.

other Idea is make sure that, if there is one, the setting in bios is enabled to boot from the HDD. check boot order etc. (wish I had the bios in front of me so i could go thru it to see what settings it has.) I know you probably did this, but you got me going now.

Yep. There are four (4) devices to boot from and the toot order is currently set to:

1. HDD
2. Optical
3. (I forget)
4. (I forget)

so it's any, and all ideas.

Greatly appreciated. I'm still looking at all options. Right now I'm trying to find the appropriate Intel SATA driver for this chipset in order to load and install that. If that doesn't work, I'm taking this HDD to my external storage unit and check to make sure that the drive is set to "Active". That is really the only other thing I can say if the SATA/RAID Driver thing doesn't work. If that doesn't work, I'll call up my client and tell them that the person that looked at it made it worse than it I anticipated.

Which, BTW, is true. The LCD screen on this thing is coming apart and the bottom of the unit is also missing some screws.

[CDsDontBurn]

So last night before going to bed I attempted to install the SATA driver during OS install procedure and still nothing.

The last thing to do is take out the HDD and make sure it's set to "Active". And if that doesn't work, then I'll just tell the client what is going on because I really won't know at that point.