Media test failure. Check cable

[larry21]

Laptop was working fine when it suddenly froze and shutdown. I restarted and this error came up:

PXE-e61: media test failure. check cable
PXE-m0f: exiting intel boot agent.

then transitions to blue popup listing boot options. selecting any of them does nothing

Here are the procedures I followed to remedy the problem:

• Went into BIOS and checked boot priority. Set ODD first then HDD. Disabled LAN boot. Restart system; PXE error gone. Displays blue popup window listing boot options.
• Reseated hard drive. No change.

My guess is hard drive dead? I have an Intel SSD btw.

Any assistance greatly appreciated. I will be monitoring this thread closely. Thank you.

 

[alexgrossman]

Consider checking your SATA cable first and make sure that it's working fine. Alternatively, you can also unplugg your hard drive and connect it externally in different computer to ensure weather it's working or not.

P.S. You can also make your SSD as your primary boot device, by installing a fresh copy of Windows. You can test the health status of your hard drive in this way too.

Post your results after trying the steps!!

 

[larry21]

Its a laptop, so no sata cable to check. Will connect HDD to another computer to see.

Also the SSD is the only drive on the computer. It is already set as boot drive and primary storage. I can't boot into windows is the problem.

 

[alexgrossman]

Insert your Windows 7 installation CD and press F8 to enter into advanced startup options. From where you could options to repair your computer, entitled 'Startup Repair'. If your computer supports, you can try following the same directly booting the system and without entering Installation CD.

P.S.: Try external medium to connect your HDD and see if it's working!!

 

[gregrocker]

Is the SSD showing up in BIOS setup? If so work through the steps for Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start

 

[larry21]

Is the SSD showing up in BIOS setup? If so work through the steps for Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start

Following step 7 of your link:

• /fixmbr and /fixboot show: A device attaches to the system is not functioning
• /scanos and /rebuildbcd show: Successfully scanned windows installations. Total identified windows installations 0

How shall I proceed from here?

PS. I don't have another computer to test the hdd ATM. I'm using my phone to monitor this thread.

 

[gregrocker]

Answer my question please.

 

[larry21]

SSD shows in bios.

 

[gregrocker]

You can also boot into Win7 installation media provided in Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start to run a Disk Check to check its condition. The bootrec error suggests it is not being detected.

If the SSD is less than a year old it is still under warranty so I'd contact Intel tech support to have them help you test it and if necessary RMA it. Unfortunately there are not many drive diagnostics for SSD's but Intel would be able to refer you to what they need to know to RMA.

Also in the steps are some requiring Partition Wizard boot CD. If you get that far and will post back a camera snap of the drive map and listings once you boot into Partition Wizard, using the paper clip icon in reply box, we can tell quite a bit more about the HD configuration.

THis will also help confirm that the correct partition is Partition Marked Active so you can run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times to see what it reports.

 

[larry21]

System Recovery Options

Operating system: unknown on (unknown) local drive

Can't perform chkdsk because of this.

Also Intel sad is 3 years old oem version, no warranty.

I assume the only thing left to do is burn and run Partition Wizard?

 

[gregrocker]

Let's see what PW CD says about the drive.

 

[larry21]

I don't have empty CD around to burn. Will DVD work? Does it matter?

 

[larry21]

I don't have another computer on hand to burn Partition Wizard right now. Will need to borrow someone's tomorrow. In the mean time:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
- disk 0 | status online | size 149.0gb | free 149.0gb | dyn -- | gpt --

Disk size seems wrong? I have a 160gb ssd.

Edit
Rebooted laptop and ran DISKPART again.

-disk 0 | status online | size 8mb | free 8mb | dyn -- | gpt --

There is definitely something wrong here.