Iphone

I am getting the following error when I start up my machine. "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK & PRESS ENTER" With a Windows XP Professional OS.

This has literally happened 'Overnight'.

The last program that I was running was Pinniacle Instant CD/DVD. I was burning a DVD-ROM and had fallen asleep while the program was running. When I awoke, the DVD was NOT created, and my computer had rebooted and the error was on the screen.

I had been having problems with the DVDRW and had updated the DVDRW BIOS. (Its a I/OMAGIC Generic DVD RW 8xMax version 401). Was running BIOS 140, updated to 150. There was a problem with the Pinnalce Program crashing and causing a BSD with a Core Dump, so I had updated the DVD-RW and removed, and reinstalled the program. It also appeared to be having problems with Daemon tools, so I also removed that program as well.

I have already:
1. Entered the Windows XP recovery console and did 'FIXMBR'.
2. Entered the Windows XP recovery console and did a 'CHKDSK /R'
3. Repaired the Windows installation with the CD.
4. Removed and Reseated all the IDE Cables either to the drives, or to the motherboard.
5. Removed the DVD-RW
6. Removed all other Hard Drives, but the drive in question.
7. Scanned for Viruses (Clean)
8. Entered the Windows XP recovery console and did "FIXBOOT" and then "FIX MBR"

The error still appears. The only present way I can boot into my computer is having the Windows XP Professional Installation Disk in the DVD-RW drive. It will then have 'Press any key to boot from CD.....' and if I don't hit any key, it will boot normally. If I have an empty DVD-RW drive, the error will occur.

Reading some recent posts, I have NOT changed any sizes of the Partitions for over 1 year. Nor have I attempted to create a dual OS system. I also DO NOT have a floppy drive on this system. Nor do I have any floppy drives I can hook up to my system either. (So the Windows 98 Boot disk is a 'no go' also.) My LAN card is NOT PXE capable. BIOS is showing the proper boot order, and all drives are being detected properly.

A recent System Scan Disk via the Windows XP GUI did show a 4k of Bad Sectors, but further scans have not shown anymore problems. If possible, I would like a solution without having to recreate the OS, due to encrypted files.

Iphone

sounds to me like a BIOS error...
you didn't say if you tried it or not, but go inside the BIOS and change the boot sequance.
maybe it recognize your HDD as hardrive 1 or 2 and not 0 (as its the default in the startup sequance in the BIOS), try and play with it a bit.