Drive not Ready. system Halted Error

[burnok100]

Hello All.
This is my 2nd problem post.
This is for my other PC

I just cleaned the tower casing for some "dust and debris" that always going inside the case and fan blowers. Anyways, after done house cleaning, the PC won't boot, and displaying the message, Drive not ready. system Halted.

I checked all the cables, and seems working fine. Checked the power supply. Im not sure if the power supply. So, I bought a new one. 500 Watts. The previous one is only 350W. Installed it, and still nothing wont boot. I decided to replace all the IDE cables. But still won't boot and displaying the same message. Checked the MoBo manual, I found that I have to replace the BIOS Battery if won't boot. Bought new battery. Reconfigured the bios to its default settings (boot via dvd), but Still the same message if i tried to boot via HDD.

I decided to use a boot CD (from Hiren), I was able to boot using the CD and navigate into my drive C, and Partitions. Used the HDD Regenerator, and was able to de-frag and remove drive errors. Still won't boot on its HDD.

So now, basically i already isolated some problems: not the power supply.. not the IDE cables.. not the front panel cables.. not the processor.. not the MoBo.. not the RAMs... i wonder if XP is the culprit..? I remember before we went home (from the office) there's this "windows update installing" at shut-down. I could not check the update as XP won't let me boot, and remove the damn KB. I was able to "manual" install a new XP, but i decided not to do it yet.

any tips..?

oopps.... my rig:
- Windows XP pro
- 512 SD-RAM (4x 128MB PC800)
- 500W PS
- Intel P4, 1.5 Mz
- Intel DG850 Mobo
- 64 MB Video Card (inno)
- Seagate 80 GB HDD
- 1x Sony CD-RW
- 1x LG DVD-Rom
- 1x 3.15 FDD

thanks

Burnok100

[burnok100]

the mobo detects the HDD from the bios setup. I'll try to remove the HDD from the PC and install that in another one. What i could not understand, is why the mobo boots up when i use a bootable CD and navigate into the HDD and its partitions? But when I select HDD boot, it wont boot at all... I'll try your suggestion, and post it back here.
Cheers !

[Big_Daddy]

Maybe because it doesn't see the boot.ini file

[burnok100]

guys,
i have located the boot.ini, but still won't boot... here's what i did yesterday.

- Got an old HDD, installed it as primary Master.. then removed all other HDD.
it boot up, but on its old os (win98 !!).. so i know the mobo is still alive.

- installed the other HDD, now as slave. I was able to navigate into its directories and partitions, that's good... but the prob now, my main files are located in MyDocs...

I will try to replace the boot.ini file and let us see...

thanks !