Apache Friends Support Forum

A coworker installed XAMPP on his Win XP machine (SP2) and is now getting an error when he tries to boot up his machine (thus me posting this and not him).

"reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key"

All USB and firewire drives are disconnected and he can't boot up his machine at all now. Has anyone else ever encountered this before? I tried searching the forums but couldn't find anything.

ToddADV wrote:"reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key"

These Google search results have many entries about this same issue.
This one shows [Resolved]:
http://discussions.virtualdr.com/showth ... p?t=203350


XAMPP does not use the registry for anything other than Windows Service entries for Apache and MySQL if selected when installing.

XAMPP does not change any registry entries just adds the ones mentioned above and so has no effect on POST or the BIOS.

XAMPP plays no part in the boot process other than just mentioned and that process is not actioned until Windows has started after the PC bios has finished.

If after checking all the usual things like cable connectors etc., then your issue looks like a problem with the bios settings and there should be a key stroke to access the bios as soon as you turn on your PC where you can check what the error message suggests and see if the boot Hard Disk is being seen and the boot order is as you expect.

So in effect this is a PC issue with possibly cable connections, the Pre Operating System Test or the Built In Operating System not an issue that could be caused by XAMPP but worst of all it could signal that your Hard Drive has failed, not an uncommon occurrence.

Best wishes.

"Never push your granny when she's shaving"
"There are no flies on me"

Please let your coworker check, if the system bios found and identifies all HDDs, especially the os system drive.
Check all cable connections from mainboard and power supply to the harddisks too.

good luck

I didn't think XAMPP had anything to do with it as I've used it for years and never had an issue. However, just because I haven't doesn't mean that no one else has right? Thanks for your responses and confirming what I believed to be the case.

His comp booted 'after a few hours' he said. So we're going to look into it deeper of course to find the 'real' issue.

Thanks for your feed back.

Good luck.