How To Fix Disk Boot Failure in Windows 10

If you want to fix the disc boot failure error in Windows 10, you can follow these fixes in this article. It also provides a method to recover lost data due to boot failure.

Posted by @Bryce September 14, 2024 Updated By @Bryce September 14, 2024

Help! My computer says disk boot failure

“When I turn on my HP Pavilion computer that running Windows 10, it doesn’t boot normally but gives a black screen with the error message as follows:

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

Here I want to know how can I fix disk boot failure in Windows 10 effectively? Any advice?”

When you see the "DISC BOOT FAILURE – INSERT SYSTEM DISC AND PRESS ENTER" message, it means that you can't start up and are stuck in this interface. As the prompt says, you need to insert a system disk. However, not everyone has a system disk prepared beforehand. To get out of this frustrating situation, this article shares several methods that allow you to do disk boot failure repair without CD.

What does disk boot failure in Windows 10 mean?

Disk boot failure in Windows 10 usually means that the computer's BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) can't find the Windows 10 operating system on the boot device that was set as the default. Why does it occur? The DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER error can be caused by a number of events. And the main reasons are listed below:

Boot from an external drive that is without boot files.
Hard drive cables are not working.
Windows system files are corrupted.
System hard disk drive or solid-state drive is damaged.

How to fix disk boot failure in Windows 10?

Having realized how DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER error occurs, it is time to learn how to solve this issue. Firstly, you can try some quick solutions

β–Ά Disconnect all external storage devices like USB flash drive, external hard drive and so on. Then, reboot your computer. β–Ά Examine whether cables are loose or dead. β–Ά Check the boot order. Press a key (the key can be different on various computers and you can refer to the user manual of your computer if you don’t know the accurate key to enter BIOS) to access BIOS upon rebooting and see whether the hard drive contains Windows is listed first in boot order. If not, set it as the first boot device and reboot your machine.

If these ways are invalid, you can try to settle out the issue with Windows installation disk or third-party software.

1. Fix disk boot failure with Windows installation disk

If you are sure about that computer boot from the right hard drive holding operating system but you still unable to boot laptop or desktop normally, you can insert Windows installation CD/DVD, boot from it, and try the following methods to fix disk boot failure in Windows 10.

1. Check hard drive error

To check and fix errors on hard drive, do the steps given below:

Step 1. Go to Repair your computer >Troubleshoot;  then, choose Advanced options and Command Prompt.

Step 2. Type chkdsk /r c: and hit Enter key.

Step 3. Exit the Command Prompt, remove the installation disc, and boot from the repaired hard drive.

Notes: β–ͺ The “r” parameter locates bad sectors on your hard drive and fixes errors. β–ͺ If the boot drive is not “C”, you should replace “C” with a bootable drive letter applicable to your computer.

2. Fix corrupted Windows system files

System File Checker allows you to scan for corruption in system files and restore corrupted files. Follow the steps to run:

Step 1. Access Command Prompt interface.

Step 2. Input sfc/scannow and press Enter key.

After you check and fix errors or repair system files, exit from Command Prompt. Then, remove the Windows installation disc and run PC from system hard drive to see whether you can boot the computer successfully.

You may interested in: (Solved) SFC Scannow not Working in Windows 7/8/10

2. Do disk boot failure repair without CD/DVD

If you have no Windows installation CD/DVD, you can turn to a free repair tool – AOMEI Partition Assistant to solve disk boot failure in Windows 10, insert system disk and press Enter problem for Windows. It allows you to create a bootable device (USB drive, CD or DVD), check hard drive error, check bad sector and etc. Download it and have a look at how to use it to repair the boot failure.

AOMEI Partition Assistant

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

Stage 1: Create bootable USB drive

Warning: All data on the USB drive will be erased.

Step 1. Connect a USB drive to a working Windows-based computer.

Step 2. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click Tools Make Bootable Media.

Step 3. In the pop-up window, choose one proper way and click Proceed.

4. Click on Finish.

Stage 2: fix the disk boot failure error with the created bootable media

After making a bootable USB drive via AOMEI Partition Assistant, connect it to the unbootable computer and boot from it. Then, you will be in the main console of AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard.

Step 1. Right-click on system partition and go to Advanced > Check Partition.

Step 2. Choose Check Partition and fix error in this partition by using chkdsk.exe among three options and click OK.

Step 3. After the operation completes, click OK.

Notes: ☞ To check bad sectors, you can choose Check whether there is a bad sector on the partition in Step 2. ☞ If you encounter boot errors like invalid partition table, you can rebuild MBR via AOMEI Partition Assistant. ☞ To solve more problems like accidentally deleting boot partition, upgrading system disk without reinstallation, you can upgrade to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional.

Recover lost data due to disk boot failure

If you lost any important data due to the boot failure or accidentally removed crucial files when fixing the problem, you can also use AOMEI Partition Assistant to restore lost data. The "Recover Data" feature of this tool makes it easy for users to get back over 200 types of data files from drives like HDD, SSD, USB, and SD cards after a crash, disc cleaning, or virus attack.

AOMEI Partition Assistant

The Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer

First, let’s create a bootable repair USB for crashed PC. Then, you can connect this USB to the target disk, and boot the computer from this USB. After you see the interface of this program, you can try data recovery function.

Step 1. In AOMEI Partition Assistant, click Recover > Recover Data.

Step 2. Select the source drive where the Word document was saved > Start Scanning.

Step 3. When the scan is over, all deleted files, Recycle Bin, and other lost files will be listed. Please select the data you want to recover and click Recover.

Step 4. Please select a path to save recovered documents.

Step 5. The recovery progress will start and data will be saved to the path if it is successful.

 

Wrap thing things up

Now, surely you have realized how to fix disk boot failure in Windows 10. But no one can ensure that the boot issue can be resolved always. When you can’t settle this boot issue, you may need to wipe hard drive and reinstall Windows operating system or you can restore system to boot computer as usual if you have already made a system image backup.