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 pxe-e61:media test failure check cable Post a Reply  
From: Rajesh on 05/03/2003
Hello,

I am in the process of assembling my first pc.During the final boot up, I am getting following error message

Intel Base-Code, PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2001, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
Boot Failure: System Halted

Some people advised me that it is due to BIOS is trying to boot from the network card. I am using Intel845WNL motherboard. My boot device priority is

1-Removable Dev.
2-CD-ROM
3-Hard Drive
4-IBA 4.0.19 Slot 0208 [I don't know what this means]

I tried 1,2,3 in different orders, but didn't work. Please advice how can I get rid of this error. Thanks in advance.


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--- Replies to this Problem ---
From: Moon on 09/06/2018
I am using Dell inspiron.Few days ago, i changed windows 9.1 login password and forgot. Now, when i tries to get into bootable mode . System shows Media test failed, Chk cable and automatically go to password page. Plz help me.
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From: dhalbtot on 02/25/2017
Toshiba satellite 1405-s151 start booting from cd after hit hdd area. f12- boot priority - hdd first - save and exit and when appear icons below Toshiba In touch to the future hit again f12 and choose cd-rom icon - enter and it workiiin (was the problem pxe e61- media test failure, check cables and exiting intel boot agent) thanks all!!!
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From: John on 11/26/2016
You do not give us much information to work with for your problem.
You don't tell us if it is the System Drive or what you are trying to do when that problem happens.
How to change the Boot Order in BIOS:
_________________________________
Make your own System Repair Disk

"This will show you how to create a Windows 7 system repair disc to be able to use to boot to system recovery options to help recover your Windows 7 installation if you don't have a Windows installation disc, can't find your Windows installation disc, or can't access the recovery options provided by your computer manufacturer.

A system repair disc is not able to install Windows 7.
Note
If you are unable to boot your Windows 7 to create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc, then you could create it on another computer to use on your computer."
_____________________________________
Then use that Disk for the System Recovery Options:
________________________________
At the end try this’- http://www.deskdecode.com/reboot-and-select-proper-boot-device-explained/

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From: kinjo on 07/14/2016
got hte fix
www.deskdecode.com/reboot-and-select-proper-boot-device-explained/
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From: gateway grudge on 07/15/2015
Read this post got a good laugh since im having the same problem as every other user . Soynded like some fools but I was bored without a laptop so what do I have to lose....lets give it a whirl....lolololol cannot even believe that actually worked tapping hd so simple i feel stupid for having sat without my laptop as long as i did...hope it works for everyone going through this issue!
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From: Silas on 06/12/2015
Hello everyone,
My name is Silas and I have a Dell Inspiron M5040 laptop. It's having a hard drive failure. I successfully replaced the hard drive, however this annoying error keeps coming up:


Intel UND1, PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

This product is covered by one of more of the following patents: US5 ,307 ,459 , US5434, 872, US5,732,094, US6,570,884, US6,115,776, and US6,327,625

Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller Series v1.24 (10/07/10)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.
Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key.


I tried the tapping the hard drive method, with no luck. I was wondering if I should've purchased a copy of Windows 7, maybe that's what's missing? It says nothing about a missing operating system, and I've no idea if my external hard drive has a copy of it or something. I connected it as well to the USB port on the side of the laptop, and it made no difference.

I already set the hard drive as the first boot priority.

What does any of this mean? What do I need to fix? Are there any sources I can use that can be provided to help fix this problem? I'm incredibly frustrated after working on fixing this laptop for almost a week now.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated. Thank you in advance.

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From: Silas on 06/12/2015
Hello everyone,
My name is Silas and I have a Dell Inspiron M5040 laptop. It's having a hard drive failure. I successfully replaced the hard drive, however this annoying error keeps coming up:

Intel UND1, PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

This product is covered by one of more of the following patents: x

Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller Series v1.24 (10/07/10)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.
Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key.

I tried the tapping the hard drive method, with no luck. I was wondering if I should've purchased a copy of Windows 7, maybe that's what's missing? It says nothing about a missing operating system, and I've no idea if my external hard drive has a copy of it or something. I connected it as well to the USB port on the side of the laptop, and it made no difference.

I already set the hard drive as the first boot priority.

What does any of this mean? What do I need to fix? Are there any sources I can use that can be provided to help fix this problem? I'm incredibly frustrated after working on fixing this laptop for almost a week now.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated. Thank you in advance.

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From: Ellen on 01/13/2015
tapping, hitting is not working for me. Any other ideas?

Also I see people talking about "changing BIOS settings?" what does this mean? All I have is a blank black screen with the error message and no options.

Please explain is simple language, I am not a techie.
I have a new computer but have very important files/photos I would like to take off this acer aspire 1 netbook, is there any way I can do that?

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From: Susan on 11/17/2014
Hard drive had slipped loose...probably one of the teenagers
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From: Jim on 11/14/2014
OMG!! I just took my hard drive out and banged the crap out of it and it's working like a dream!!!! LMAOOOOO!! Thanks
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From: G on 09/04/2014
You would not believe this
I`ve installed the unit back to factory defaults using the recovery option and my friend came to pick it up only find when I switched it on for him that it showed this:
Intel Base-Code, PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2001, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
Boot Failure: No Operating System found

but I swear I have installed Vista back to default.I told him I have to fix this knowing that I had , OH man.
He left and I sit with this and after reading this POSTS of you awesome guys I opened the harddrive casing at the back only to find the harddrive lying loose from the ports . OH MY GOODNESS.
put the hdd back and bobs your uncle hahahahahahahahahahaha lol

thank you so much for at least look at the back of this laptop

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From: Luc on 08/23/2014
tapping the HD works! Unbelievable
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From: Flavio Acuña on 03/05/2014
Ufffff tratando de solucionar el problema por todos los metodos y nada!!!........... la golpeo de la parte de abajo y funciona jajaja metodo muy recomendado, gracias
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From: Jassooo on 12/30/2013
My fix with ibm t40 was this:
Installing hdd it was easy to put it so that wrong jumpers hit it. I took the comp a part ( not maybe necessary) put it so that block of 4 pins separated from others and not in use. hdd was greenside upwards so try to get the 2.5 pata hdd to fit from the side nearee to you

Pdxe went off from disabling some network things on bios.

Computer would still not boot from cdr but i found out it does boot from dvd so instead of xp , i installed win7 for fun. Now im looking to make xp boot dvd. I had real xp cds but no luck with any.

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From: Kdawg757 on 12/17/2013
So I'm reading all this fools on here that think spanking your hard-drive is a smart thing to do, like that would have any chance at succeeding. So for giggles I spanked it, and.... Holy COW !! It worked!! I have thrown away computers and just bought new ones, WOW. I am an idiot, should have come here first. Thank you Thank you!!
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From: napoles on 09/16/2013
nothing happens!!
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From: mr and mrs od on 06/02/2013
thanks sooo much it works!!!!!
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From: Brian on 02/15/2013
I have to say I thought you were all crazy saying to bang the hard drive, BUT I figured I would give it a try and after bouncing the hard drive off my counter top about 5-6 times I put it back in and bam it booted up. Thanks for the great tip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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From: Najeeb on 01/21/2013
Yp, tapping the hard drives and battey etc actually works i have just done that and solve the prob with my laptop, thanx to all who posted solutions they help me get rid of a huge mess
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From: Pat on 10/03/2012
Hitting the hard drive lightly does the trick :) Thanks!!! It really worked!
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From: Joy on 09/06/2012
Thanks soooooooo much. Took the battery out and tapped it on the counter and hit the bottom a few times. My son thought I had lost
my mind!! IT WORKED!! First website I pulled up.
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From: Gourav Sharma on 09/04/2012
This is most likely due to heat sink. As when CPU heat, it somehow do not detect HDD and eventually starts giving these errors.
Would prefer to have heat sink (past) between CPU and FAN which will lower down heat while running laptop.
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From: JC on 08/26/2012
Holy Mother of god my Laptop started having this error and i read this thread and i opened up the HDD case and put the thing back in correctly and when i turned it on i was so happy i swear my neighbors heard me screaming like hell.
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From: samy on 08/09/2012
HI
I've got a compac presario r3000 and it says PXE-E61 media test failure
check cable.
Can Anyone please advice me how to fix this.
My emial is samhabi0172@gmail.com
Thanks
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From: dustin on 07/11/2012
umm ive read all this stuff and seam pretty amazing but will it work on my moms dell inspiron b120 its a laptop and not a desktop :S
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From: Craig on 05/25/2012
I also have this PXE-E61, error, as well as PXE-M0F. My old hard drive crapped its pants, so I got a brand new one. Since then I have been getting these messages. I have installed both old hard drives, and the new one again, and get this PXE-E61 error, which is not a characteristic of the other 2 hard drives failures. I've tried tapping, the hard drive, the laptop, changing what drive boots first. Nothing has worked as of yet.
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From: vijayan on 05/18/2012
I am in the process of assembling my first pc.During the final boot up, I am getting following error message

Intel Base-Code, PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2001, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
Boot Failure: System Halted

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From: Sweetupp on 04/14/2012
OMG...i cant believe i had this blank screen and noW that i hit the shit out of it..it now works....UN-fucking believable..THANK YOU ALL SOOO MUCH!!!
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From: Nate Jaeger on 03/31/2012
Turn on your mini and tap on F2. Your bios will come up and on the main page look down the list until you see HARD DRIVE, look at the next line if it starts with a 0MB, you know the hard drive is not being accessed. I tapped all four corners and also hit the underside of the hard drive several times. Unplugged the battery for five minutes, plugged it in and held down the on button for 30 seconds. Started the computer, same message and the hard drive isn't being read. I think my hard drive is finished and in three years I've used the computer for maybe 10 hours.
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From: Medley on 03/27/2012
Tried whacking the hard drive a bunch of ways... didn't work for me. I guess I'm back to putting in a new hard drive.
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From: Ragbag on 03/23/2012
Unbelievable!! I was advised on other threads to create a boot cd and reflash the bios. I spent a couple of hours looking for my recovery disks too.... oh just tap it a few times and Hey Presto....
This is fantastic and I can now live again!!!
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From: Angel on 03/15/2012
Ive been working on a ACER Aspire 5100 for a couple days now with the

Copyright (C) 1997-2001, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

And guess what? I took the darn HDD out and hit it with a hammer a few good times and VOILA! It works! Thanks!

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From: Rachel on 03/10/2012
I now am getting the same message as everyone else, but I had just ran a program 'minitool drive wipe', as I am giving my computer to someone from work I really don't know very well. Now it appears that it is useless. Any ideas.
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From: Alana on 02/29/2012
HIT IT!!!!! It works!!!! B
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From: PAUL KAY FOSTER MACKENZIE on 02/23/2012
BIOS is checked out when computer is switched on and reports configuration, if set as 1st boot device hard drive at Bios boots here, if Bios is set to another device it boots there, 1st boot sequence is your 1st boot choice, if hard drive is the choice initialization activates a mechanical arm where mounted on its end is a head configuration comprising of magnetic small boxlike shapes the arm and its associated parts directionalises its self over to the outside cylinders on the platter/plate associated with the disc in the hard drive and attempts to read a ring of coded data and locates sector 1 and an area of data where reading executes from MBR (MASTER BOOT RECORD) and tells computer what PARTITION to boot in this case it is drive "C". Since "C" is active partition on after the scan boot reports on 2 "FILE ALLOCATION TABLES" known as FAT and provides size, here is the record recordings of files on hard disc, after reading the 1st FAT, 2nd FAT contains "ROOT DIRECTORY" where 2 hidden system files are located and a "KEY FILE" called "COMMAND.COM" boot process initializes windows start. PARTITIONING can in hard drive takes on other assigned letters "D" "E" "F" ETC. Where no partitioning has occurred next hardware device CD-ROM IS assigned the letter "D", and this can be your 1st BOOT device rather than hard drive, it’s optional. A VIRUS can replace MBR with themselves and replace MBR somewhere else.
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From: liz on 01/21/2012
Thank you so much.

Removed the battery, tapped all four corners on countertop.

Put battery back on... and now the hard drive shows up in the choices for boot-up,

Awesome!

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From: Himanshu on 01/09/2012
Holy F*ck guyz it actually worked!... just hit the damn hard disk from below and it fkin worked... u guyz rock........ Boo to all dose geeks who say dont hit it........ BOOO
Hit it guyz ...... go on........
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From: Carol on 01/08/2012
Wow. Haven't been able to use my laptop for months. Even bought tools to dismantle it and all I had to do was tap it.
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From: Calvin on 01/07/2012
I have been working on a Dell inspiron for about 3 weeks after replacing the second hard drive i notice the error PXE-E61 media test failure check cable.I read all the thread on this site and i tapped the hard drive and to my amazement it really worked. Thank you so very much for this thread.
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From: Will on 01/06/2012
No F-ing way. For the last year my computer has been dead to the world I was told my mortherboard was bad so finally I bought a new one and I was told my video card was bad so I finally but a new one. And all I had to do was tap the bottom of the hard drive and it f-ing worked...WTH!!!
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From: col on 12/29/2011
No nothing about computers,got given a near new laptop with the above error. Belted the the hard disc, FIXED!!!!. Cheers
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From: gaz on 12/23/2011
yes, does a few taps on the bottom of the case of a toshiba nb200 with the battery pulled.
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From: STINKY on 12/17/2011
WTF!!! You guys are the shit!!! I have had this issue with PEX-61e error for months now. I've changed HDDs, configured and re-configured, changed jumper settings and spent countless hrs on the net trying to figure this out. HITTING THE HDD REALLY DOES WORK! I PRAISE YOU, BOW DOWN BEFORE YOU...
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From: mike on 12/03/2011
I have a gateway that does the same thing
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From: Steve on 11/30/2011
Back on the origional topic.
Had the failiure check message, gave the hard drive a few taps (whacks)and the drive came to life.
Well pleased.
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From: Bridget & Waylon Vary on 11/11/2011
So my husband called Toshiba Tech Support and they could do nothing for him and that he should send it in to have it repaired... and I found this thread for him... It suggested that you bang the harddrive to get it back on its rocker he looked at me like I was off mine lol... But it worked... Guess whos getting head!
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From: Semper on 10/20/2011
Holy f___ !!!! Whoever invented these pc's didn't made money in giving the fix! Patent for hitting the hardrive.!!! LOL!
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From: marion on 10/09/2011
My son came to me really upset when his computer started doing this. I found this thread so we opened up the computer and sure enough the hard drive was not seated properly. What relief as I just payed to have the hard drive replaced. THANK YOU EVERY ONE!!
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From: maribel on 10/01/2011
i was on imternet explorer on my laptop its a ThinkPad Z61 and it shut down then when i tried to turn it on it says

Broadcom UNDI PXE-2.1 v8.3.9
Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Broadcom Corporation
All rights reserved.

Broadcom Base Code PXE-2.1 v1.0.4
Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Broadcom Corporation
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM.

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From: Jordie on 09/28/2011
It's a sile fix all you have to do is physicialy put the desktop on its side and if that doesn't work take the side off of the desktop and there will most likely be a red cable hanging around there will be a black rectangular like object and there willbe a whole for the cable and it doesn't matter if there is sticky stuff on it or not if it is loose you can tape or hot glue it there and there problem fixed, though if the message is still there just wait it will go awa and the preoblem will permanetly be fixed
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From: pat on 09/20/2011
HIT THAT BAD BOY WORKED FOR ME WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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From: Marko on 09/16/2011
I removed PCI LAN from boot devices, that fixed it :)
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From: Rob on 09/13/2011
TRUTH!!


Was trying to boot from 3.5", gave her a whapp when it has the image to put the disk in, then hit F1. great success!!

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From: DChet on 09/09/2011
Yes holy shit....spent 4 days on this aspire and two wacks does it...unbelievable technology......put a hammer in my service kit....Thanks
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From: Hmg on 09/08/2011
For my HP I just disabled the network boot option and I was good to go. I tried hitting hard drive first because I'm lazy but no dice.
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From: Thomas on 09/06/2011
HARD DRIVE MUST BE SET AS PRIMARY AND ACTIVE PARTITION!! And it's also good to put hard drive on the first place in bios - boot device.. it helped me with this PXE-E61 error. Good luck!
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From: rajesh on 09/03/2011
plz help me to solve the problam.
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From: curtis on 08/28/2011
HOLY FUCK HITTING IT ACTUALY WORKED YO BASTARDS HIT THAT HARDDRIVE
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From: DREWEY on 08/21/2011
LOL i smacked it near the Hard drive and it booted up lol
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From: cbrown on 08/14/2011
Well, hitting it worked just like you guys said. Thank you!
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From: Paul on 08/08/2011
Hello,
I have a Sony Vaio VGN-N325E.During boot up I get the following error:
Yukon PXE v3.5.2.3 (20050803)

Pre-boot eXecution Environment (PXE) v2.1

PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cale
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM
Operating System not found.

I am trying to install windows 7 however i cant access the boot sequence menu due to a phoenix bios password.I used a backdoor password and got a one time password module screen with a key.How can I obtain the enter onetime password or is there any other solution to disable the bios password.

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From: jose on 08/07/2011
I got a HP pc and the os was taken out. when I try to install OEM I get PXE-E61 Media test Failure What do I do?
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From: Bob on 08/03/2011
I have Toshiba SATELLITE 1405-S151 bios rev 1.3
this is what worked for me in bios i set
boot order to FDD-HDD-CD-LAN
network boot protocol=RPL
built in lan =Disabled

my guess is there are multiple problems and this may not work for all.but its easy
and worth a try

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From: Seebass on 08/03/2011
Holy smokes...never thought hitting a computer would fix the problem.
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From: Vegas PC Guy on 08/03/2011
Just for the recored -- don't hit your PC - Don't kick your PC -- this problem is caused either by the following reason:

Inproper BIOS setting

Bad Drive --

or Loos cable on your hard drive -- which is why some are telling you to his your PC -- If you hit your PC then the IDE or SATA cable will make contac and the pc boots.

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From: Daam on 08/01/2011
those gentle but smacks on the computer helped! thanks a lot :D fantastic!
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From: Crystal on 07/31/2011
Thanks everybody. At first I was upset b/c I was told to abuse my computer but started smacking it around and it does in fact fix the problem. Yeah!!!
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From: Chris on 07/26/2011
You should check the battery as well. Reseating worked like a charm. No more errors! Yeah!!
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From: David on 07/21/2011
Subject
---------------------------------------------------------------
I keep getting Pxe e61, pxe m0f...


Discussion Thread
---------------------------------------------------------------
Response (Mary LincyKM) - 07/21/2011 11:59 AM
Dear David Ashawasega,

Thank you for contacting Acer America. My name is Mary and Badge Number GWSI868. I'll be happy to assist you.

As per our record your computer is out of warranty.

I understand that the computer does not boot up.

David, we completely understand your concern.

As the warranty of the computer expired our scope of support is limited.

However, as a one time best effort we would suggest you check the boot priority by following the steps mentioned below:

- Power the notebook on, and immediately begin tapping F2 to get into the notebook BIOS.
- In the BIOS use the arrow keys to select the Boot Menu.
- In the Boot Menu will be "Boot Priority Order" and below that will be a list of devices. The first in the list should be "IDE 0".
- If "IDE 0" is not the first, use the arrow keys to highlight "IDE 0"
- Use the designated keys to move "IDE 0" to the top.
- Press the F10 key and press the enter key to save and reboot the computer.

Tried this and it still don't work?

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From: Mal on 07/18/2011
Thanks muchly - a few Fonzie whacks and she started up..whew.
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From: yvonne on 07/03/2011
i need help please somebody help me i accidently erased my partition and i don't know how to get it back when i press f2 it takes me to a setup page but i don't know what to do from there im not that smart but i can understand simple dierctions can some one help me save my laptop please
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From: Amy on 07/02/2011
yay awk no comp did what u guys said hit it it worksxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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From: jacqui on 07/01/2011
hmm, didn't realise i would appear at the top of the comments list. Let me rephrase.

i had the same error come up while typing an essay. i thought i might have done something silly when i was fiddling in the systems options of task manager.

After reading the posts on this forum that suggested hitting the computer to jiggle the harddrive, i had a flash back to nintendo days where blowing in the system or beating it would always make it go.

So i gave the laptop a bit of a slap and tickle, nothing in the way of abuse. And sure enough she was turned on.

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From: Jacqui on 07/01/2011
Had an assignment due and had a panic after fiddling with systems that i had killed the laptop. But i smacked that bitch up and all is working. What a relief.
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From: shane on 06/29/2011
wow i gave my acer aspire a good smack around the HDD section "i still get the pxe-e61:media test failure check cable ERROR" but it has actually allowed me to install windows 7 onto the HDD after 19hours of no sleep and endlesly searching forum after forum and no luck "this was my last resort before i was going to smash the laptop to 50 million pieces" so i wanna thank everyone here you all are farken amazing and have saved me alot of $$$ and it now alowes me to still boot up into windows with no problems SO THANK U SO MUCH!!!!

kind regards

shane "from the land down under"

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From: andrew on 06/29/2011
you need boot device number 1 in the bios to be the hard drive and make sure the hard drive is in the socket properly you may need to remove the hard drive bracket as it can cause problems if it is bent where it makes contact with the case
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From: Sharon on 06/20/2011
Yup, the taps really, unbelievably worked - booting from external cd drive to netbook
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From: Ron on 06/14/2011
Add me to the list of people a few good smacks worked for. Can't believe it but it did.
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From: channa on 06/14/2011
tapping the Hard Drive works perfectly...........thanks
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From: Amit on 06/06/2011
I followed this thread and I banged my laptop around Hard Disk area. To my surprise, OS started working.
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From: Ben on 06/06/2011
As someone who found this thread in a panic due to knowing nothing about computers, these postings saved my ass. All I did was open up the HDD door on my laptop, made sure it was connected securely, and it's back up and running. Thanks all, I thought this day was going to be a lot worse.
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From: jhef on 05/28/2011
Please check the cable of the network card inside the AMP slot if it is loosen..
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From: Dan on 05/22/2011
After 4 days no computer and me nearly taking it to pc doctor i came across this site and fixed my comp.
The method to get it going again........a few good wack's go the computer bash!
Cant believe it worked MUHAHA more $$ for beer
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From: Amie on 05/21/2011
GOT THE NASTY BLUE PAGE AGAIN ARG I WAS SO CLOSE :(
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From: Amie on 05/21/2011
OKAY I've hit it... nothing
F2... nothing!
removed battery nothing
hit again nothing?
now it changed to the screen with start windows normally safe mode etc tried all of them but the one with eh networks and something else NOTHING it gets stuck on the windows loading page -.-
HIT it HARDER
got to the windows is starting up bit now...
I don't know if it's gonna load?
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From: Kris on 05/17/2011
I thought you guya were crazy, when you said to hit on the left and right sides two times. I tried it and it worked like a charm. Thanks again
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From: Alex on 05/12/2011
Had the same problem with my dell laptop and after trying everything I could think of tried a firm tap on the hard drive corner, and was quite surprized when on it went. There is a sticker there that says "STRIKE ZONE"!
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From: Anonimous on 05/07/2011
thanks to Bill G.
I only had to change the boot order in my BIOS to 1st


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From: toshiba on 04/26/2011
OMG! it works. just bang on your computer. AMAZING!!! so glad i found this thread.
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From: comp scientist on 04/24/2011
MORONS! Hitting the computer!!! REALLY??? F'n third world s'ns of bi'chs... MS in Comp Sci here... Huh"""???????? LOL jajajajajajajaja. OMG as I'm ready-ing myself to blast everyone for being dweebs I pressed the on-button on my IBM after I slammed iabused it a few times out of frustration and turn it on it's side for reboot! God does Exists! I'm backing up everything it worked!!! Thx to this moron nation here!!! Sincerly, --MASTER MORON Here...
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From: nomac on 04/20/2011
let me laugh before I tell U guys to solve this probs ;D

I thought it was so hard.. but know what, I just hitting 2 times in the right of the corner, and 2 times in the left of the laptop, then I turned it on, and it worked as ussually :) Thanks God, and y'all guys

unbelieveable, I still don't believe this (for my 1st. action with the engine)

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From: jaroos on 04/07/2011
Made me laugh! I thought tapping/bashing/hitting...whatever you want to call it was a joke, but it actually worked. I usually set my laptop on a side when I don't use it, so I gently turned the other side and tapped it against the floor a few times and magically it worked...awesome! Thanks guys!
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From: Kyle on 03/30/2011
I have dual hard drives, for some reason HDD boot sequence was inverted to boot the 2nd or S2 drive first, I changed to S1 and fixed my issue.
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From: ssack on 03/24/2011
I have had the same issue, i bought a new HDD to insure that wasn't the issue I also used Parted Magic Live USB a great Utility OS, found out the HDD had bad sectors. Now still the same issue with the new HDD. I went into the BIOS next the my primary hard drive was an exclamation mark. I wasn't getting any were searching PXE fixes, so I searched for that Exclamation, discovered how to remove it by ALT+1 or CTRL+1 (already forgot which)now I don't get the error, but I am still having crash issues ever time I try to use the HDD (installing Windows 7 or any other OS) I can boot a Live Linux all day and it will run for hours with out any crashes, My Theory is now that the HDD connector is not connecting well with the Motherboard. What I plan to do now is the BAKE method. I seems logical when the computer was operational I worked that HDD to the max and the heat could have caused the solder to melt around the adapter or that connect to the MB.
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From: Spurga on 03/22/2011
I've kicked my laptop before i got the problem.Means,i've got pissed and i kick near the hdd.So,gave me the same pxe-e61 and the other things,plus the hdd is making some "new".Does it mean that the hdd is dead,cuz i've tried your suggestions,but it doesnt work.....
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From: bob edry on 03/21/2011
u re a failure.............just stop in life just stop.
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From: Dave on 03/20/2011
HP DV1000

Applying pressure to the bottom where the hard drive is located allowed the laptop to boot. I used the small pad idea placing a piece of folded paper to put extra pressure on the hard drive where the contacts are located. It is working for the moment.

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From: SUBHOJEET on 03/18/2011
JUST RE-INSTALLING THE OS WILL WORK FINE ON ANY MACHINE....
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From: daman on 03/15/2011
do what it says and cjeck the cable. you'll be surprised it actually works
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From: MR BAINS on 03/14/2011
Im a computer engineer and i had the same problem on a few IBMs.

What you should do is in the following order:
1.Go into bios and load defaults (usually hit F1)
2.Go into bios and set the boot sequence as HDD number 1
3.Go into bios and disable network PXE boot if possible.
4.Now retry
5.No success press F12 and choose HDD as boot up
6.Now retry
7.No success then remove the HDD clean the contacts and reseat
8.Now retry
9.No success open the laptop lid locate which part of the laptop the hdd is located and just give the laptop a tap in that corner and abit of a push (with the laptop turned OFF) Ive successfully fixed 2 of my IBM's doing this.
10.Still no success try changing the HDD and reformating a fresh
11.Still no success i would open the laptop up completely remove the motherboard and oven bake your motherboard and 375f for 10 minutes BUT BE WARNED DO A GOOGLE SEARCH BEFORE DOING THIS!. This method can also repair other faults such as GPU faults, Memory faults..ect.

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From: Texas on 03/13/2011
Hey, no the guys/gals are not guess. I hit the corner a few times and mines worked as puting win 7 on there. So yes there is something loose in there. But I'm not taking the whole thing apart. Thanks guys, I was about throw this in the trash.
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From: Arun on 03/12/2011
Solution:
Put 'Hard Drive C:' before 'Network' in the boot order
(If the hard drive does not appear in the boot order, that's why the PXE network boot agents start)

Note : Check that the hard drive is seen in the BIOS setup
Cause:
PXE (pronounce Pixie) is an agent used to boot on to the network
It's using the DHCP protocol to localise a server where the image of the OS is located
In order to PXE boot press F12 at startup or configure the boot order in BIOS to display 'Network' before 'Hard Drive C:'
If, for any reason, the hard drive is not seen the computer will attempt to boot on the network controller.
That is caused by the hard drive is missing, unplugged or failed

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From: Andrew on 03/12/2011
i was having the same problem and pressing on the corners worked for me.
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From: Victor on 03/10/2011
PLEASE I NEED ASSISTANCE ON THIS ERROR MESSAGE I KEEP RECEIVING ON MY P3 PC:
Intel (R)boot agent version 3.0.04
copyright (c)1997-2000, Intel Corporation
PEX-E62:media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF:exiting Intel PXE ROM

I TRIED TO CHANGE THE BOOT ORDER BUT COULDN'T FIND IT WITHIN THE BIOS SETUP. SO I REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW ELSE TO TACKLE THE PROBLEM AS I HAVE CHECK AND CONFIRMED ALL OTHER THINGS SUCH AS THE CABLE, THE HARD DRIVE.

I REALLY NEED THE HELP. KINDLY HELP!!!

THIS IS MY E=MAIL ADDRESS: emcivics@yahoo.com

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From: Dev on 03/08/2011
Hitting slightly on the right corners worked for me. Guess there was a loose connection.
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From: Arno on 03/07/2011
Hitting worked like a charm!! Thx
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From: Bill G. on 03/02/2011
Hey everyone, 99% of the posts here are just gessing.

First of all you should know that there can be several different causses for the pxe-e61 error.

few of the most likely ones are:
1. No or damaged hard disk.
2. Bad contact between the hard disk and the cable connecting to the motherboard
3. wrong boot order settings.
4. Dead secondary battery.

First, check if your boot order is correct. You can do so by pressing F12 just after your computer is turned on and selecting Hard Disk from the menu. Try all the hard drives. If your computer starts successfully, it means you need to change the boot priority order in the BIOS (use google to get the procedure).

However, if your problem does not go away, take the hard disk out and test if it works by puting it in to another laptop. If it does not work, buy a new HD. If it does work, follow the next step.

In this case, your computer is probably quite old, and some of the connections might have lost contact OR your secondary battery is flat OR both. First replace the secondary battery (ask google how to) and chack if it helps. If it does great, but if it does not you are litteraly screwed. It means that your connections dont have contact. In this case it is almost impossible to find the exact point with a problem, however you can try to open up the PC and re-connect all the conectors. If that fails, you have one last option (works only for laptops), HIT your laptop lightly from different angles. Hit it on the corners because they are strong and will send the shock waves to every part. This might temporarily fix the problem. (No I am not kidding)

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From: Vivian on 02/26/2011
Had the same problem with a Panasonic Toughbook. After reading the replies here, I decided to try pressing down on the corners of the computer and also opened the hard drive compartment and pressed down gently but firmly on it and wouldn't you know it, it booted up perfectly after that! There had even been a clicking sound during the time it was giving the error code and that disappeared, too. My husband uses it at work, in the field, and it gets banged around quite a bit, so hitting it seemed counterproductive. Thank you to all who suggested the loose connection fix.
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From: Brian on 02/22/2011
I was getting the same PXE-E61 media test failure message and the computer was continuously rebooting after prompting me to boot windows normally. I disabled the PXE option in the bios and made sure that my boot order was HD/SATA and then CD...I disable all other boot options. Once I did that I no longer go the "PXE-E61 media test failure" message but it continued to tell me to start windows normally before continuously rebooting. So I am stuck and I am thinking now the HD has failed. Any OTHER suggestions from this point??? thanks
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From: Rashneesh on 02/20/2011
I dont know, i'm very reluctant to try anything violent or "last resort" to fix this problem. It seems minor, but no one can really provide a straight forward answer to a sufficient fix. So is this problem the pertaining to the Hard Drive or Network card? I have my PM hard drive set to first boot, then my secondary, and then the network is last (this all done in the BIOS). Every time I set the Network as first priority to boot it gives me the Info screen, scans, then gives me the "RXE-E61- media test failure, check cable, exiting." then it loads my OS. So, my OS still works and i'm able to operate on my computer with no problems so far, but every time I have to restart or boot up my comp I have to either bypass it completely by going into my BIOS and loading it manually, or wait about an extra 5 minutes for it to actually boot up itself.. I'm operating an Alienware M9750 Intel DP T5500 1.77, 2.5g RAM, M8700 Video card.
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From: Steve on 02/19/2011
PXE-E61 error is not really the Hard Drive, but the cable connecting it to the motherboard. On a laptop that is not an easy thing to replace (some of them are part of the MB it self, not a cable). The only way to fix it is to replace the cable or the MB or if you can find the bad connection and repair it which i just did...so like the other gentleman said don't hit it..yea that might fix it temp. but thats saying bad connection not the hard drive
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From: Ciuy on 02/17/2011
BASHING actually WORKED LOL.

Thanks guys :)

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From: steven on 02/17/2011
ok on the PXE-E61 error.. i have the same problem, i replaced the hard drive and same thin i have another laptop and the hard drive works fine in it, so can it be the Bios and if so how do you do an update flash if the laptop don't see any of the HDD or Optical drives. thanks for listing
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From: Joe on 02/14/2011
You guys are idiots hitting the thing...
that is not very smart, hope you have paper weights sitting around now...


For those who cannot get the thing working period, even after resetting and re-configuring the BIOS and boot order...

Your hard drive is corrupt, it can happen, we carry our laptop around alot and within the last week it has been doing some weird things, after placing it on my table... it must have been enough to do something bad to the hard drive... essentially the way the hard drive "isn't secure" in the computer is enough to knock it around (unless someone has been hitting the thing!)

if none of the above (DONT HIT THE COMPUTER AS A METHOD PLEASE YOU IDIOTS) works, get a new hard drive and reinstall windows...

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From: sas on 02/14/2011
I got the same errors, I turned my notebook on its side, and it worked first time. I'd guess there's a faulty connection to the hard drive.

No computers were harmed (so far)

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From: Nathan on 01/18/2011
Never mind.

Sager called ME! Even if I do have to return it, that's more support than I ever got from Dell.

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From: Nathan on 01/18/2011
I have the same problem with a brand new Sager laptop that just arrived today.

Being a new computer, I'm not willing to kick it across the room.

Opening the hard drive access port and reseating the hard drive didn't help. Looks like I'm going to have to ship it back and lord only knows when it'll return -- probably after we move in three weeks.

Sigh.

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From: Jason on 01/14/2011
Why do people retype the same issue over and over? Doesn't that simply waste everyone's time? Why don't you try removing the hard drive entirely and try to reboot!? The same error comes up. Come on people, stop hitting your computers! I have three HPzd7200s and all worked until one received the pxe-e61 error. After moving that hard drive to each of the other three, the same error popped up. I then removed the hard drive entirely and vwalah!
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From: PJ on 01/10/2011
My solution to this same problem is that I bought a Mac.
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From: Tom on 01/07/2011
To Paul

wow hitting my computer worked!!

nice one mate

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From: iFixYou on 01/01/2011
I had this exact problem on my Acer Aspire 5100. A friend gave it to me saying there was a virus on the drive. I removed the drive and performed a series of tests and everything was clean. I checked the connections where the hard drive is, all good.

I read some posts about people slamming it in frustration and it worked after that.

I was about to purchase a new motherboard when I had the screen open, I grabbed the left front corner and had to lift the unit to move something. This applied a lot of pressure on this section of the motherboard. To my amazement it booted without a hitch into Windows. A little further research found there is a loose chip on this side just below the windows button. Either direct down pressure or trying lifting the unit from this corner and powering on.

Sometimes I have to do it each time I want to start this computer but it seems this particular motherboard has this issue a lot.

Hope it helps someone...

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From: Tracy on 12/30/2010
I just bought a Dell refurb. had the error, read some posts. The optiplex is supposed to be able to be remotely controlled. In the Bios, just change the boot sequence so the pxe-61 isnt called for in the boot sequence. Think the cable is the Lan cable
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From: Paul on 12/29/2010
To Max

I had the identical issue and was able to fix the problem 10 minutes ago. I was skeptical after reading these posts but everything I tried got me nowhere so I decided to SLAM the lid closed and on the 2nd slam, the hard drive woke and ALAS the issue was gone.
Yea sounds crazy but it worked.

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From: Max on 12/29/2010

PXE-E61

same problem,
Toshiba laptop sat/pro 6100
disk replaced in 2007
Worked ok on XP

Tried to install xubuntu
created boot cd, working well on other PC
Does not boot on Toshiba PXE-E61
Tried several boot-order settings

WinME start up cd works well
FDisk and format without errors
So does BART-PE boot CD

Suggestions?


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From: Richard on 12/28/2010
I had the "PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM." message when booting up my 18 month old Toshiba Satellite L350.

After reading posts on this thread I couldn't bring myself to start hitting it so I removed an access plate on the bottom (numbered 4) and below it found the hard drive. I found the hard drive wasn't pushed fully home in to it's connection socket. I gently pushed it in sideways and hey presto next time I switched it on it worked as normal again.

Thanks to those who shared their experiences ... it saved me a trip and expense of going to get it fixed by professionals!

What the Toshiba seems to be lacking is something to hold the hard drive in position - it's almost inevitable that it will work it's way loose over time. I'm going stick a small sponge pad to the case against the end of the hard drive to stop it wiggling loose again.

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From: JCFalcon on 12/25/2010
Custom System
MSI MS7191 motherboard
AMD processor
Same PXE-E61 error
Installed a SATA HDD and SATA DVD-ROM. System board was used. Got into Network boot ROM by following instructions flashed on screen during boot. In my case, SHIFT+F10. Left setting that allows PXE or RCL alone. Changed next setting that allowed machine to only use BIOS to boot. Rebooted into BIOS (pressing DEL as the machine is booting in my case) Checked boot sequence, set 1st boot to CD/DVD and second boot to HDD. IMPORTANT if you are using SATA drives as I am, make sure that the SATA section of your BIOS is set to "use SATA as IDE" and then be POSITIVE that EVERY available IDE channel is set to AUTO. Just looking at the page and seeing NOT DETECTED is not good enough. Enter EVERY one and set them to AUTO. This was my problem. I had no IDE drives, only SATA, so I set all of my IDE channels to NOT INSTALLED. After that they just showed up as NOT DETECTED. Although my SATA section was set to USE AS IDE, the process could not be completed, because the BIOS needs to fake the SATA as IDE, and if all of your IDE are disabled, it can't find the device. My computer booted fine after this.

-hope this helps

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From: Mr Fixer on 12/22/2010
Dunno about hitting it or taking out the hardrive and putting it back in again, both solutions didnt work for me after repeatedly getting the pxe-e61:media test failure check cable error message.

Finally, after 2 days of jiggery pockery and lots of smacking i got it to work by using a pretty ruthless technique, it seems i may not have been hitting my machine hard enough, so my solution was to close the laptop lid and place 2 pillows against a wall, inbetween the pillows i sandwiched my laptop, guaging where i thought the bottom left hand corner of my lappy was i brought the full force of my booted foot to bear on it with a swiftly kick.

Nervously i plugged it in and turned it on, (not expecting a result to be honest) and lo and behold the thing booted up perfectly and has done so ever since, although the fan now makes a grating noise and i have lots of very thin brilliantly coloured lines 2/3 of the way across my monitor, but other than that it is as good as new, thankyou!

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From: Geoff on 12/20/2010
Hi all I had the same error message.
I started to get it as soon as I changed the boot order to boot from cd rom . Somehow I had Broadcom first instead of cd rom.
After putting Broadcom PXE last the laptop boots ok and without the PXE error message.
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From: TheVietGuy on 12/14/2010
What does it mean by "One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency?"
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From: Helen on 12/14/2010
Hi! my netbook has a similar problem: when I turn it on I get this error message:
Intel UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 082)
For Realtek RTL 8101E/8102E(L)/8103E(L)
PCI-Ethernet Controller v1.13 (081016)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM

when I hit F2, it says: Entering SETUP..., and stays there forever...

can anyone help?

tks

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From: Taylin on 12/13/2010
I have the error message to. I have a custom built computer and I just nuked so everything is gone. When I try to boot it with the os disk in ready to install I keep getting this error

PXE-E61: media test failure, check all cables
PXE-M0F: existing NVIDIA boot agent.

I made sure all the cable are securely plugged in and can't figure out what's wrong. Help please

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From: High Tech on 12/11/2010
Hello.

Solution:

1. Turn off Network boot (Set it to disable)
2. D2D can be enabled/ disabled
3. If you are inserting a hard drive which was an external/ portable remove the jumper from the hard drive and as most external/ portable laptop hard drives have type IDE, change the SATA from AHCP to IDE in BIOS(Press F2/ del key on start-up to go in BIOS).
4. Check boot sequence.
4. Boot from windows xp, vista, seven cd and install the O.S.

Thanks,
High Tech.

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From: Kossara on 12/06/2010
Hey, yeah, I am having the same problem, same error, but it's conneted to Realtek program. And it keeps showing on and on each time after rebooting (one after another) and then like from nothing it fixes itsself till at some point after half an hour or 2 hours working on it my laptop decides to restart by itsself and there we go again! I don't know if it is a big problem and it really doesn't botter me that much cuz after a few blind reboots it works and my laptop turns successfully on. I have an Acer and it has been reinstalled a few times now, the last time a little less than a month ago. So what the heck is the problem?? Why has it happened?? All I can assume after all the reading is that I've apperantly hit my computer somewhere and the Hard drive isn't on it's exact spot. Did I just say a dumb thing or did I get it right? :D Question is, how do u fix it??
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From: Whatever33 on 12/06/2010
I had this problem, it was the Hard Drive, it was not connected well after reassembly. Thanx to ppl that said it was HDD!
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From: Frank on 12/02/2010
Had a msi with the same issue i was on it carrying it landed on my lap, it froze error mesage of exe 61 media whatever.
I then read direction on her went to bios set to default and... TADA! its fixed.
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From: Haavis on 12/02/2010
Hi.

I`ve got a Hp Pavilion ze2358. The problem startet with a "freeze" (the mousecursor froze too) in windows, leaving me with no other options than rebooting. Thereafter the messages appeared over and over again.

pxe-E61: media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

Please help, I have tried "hitting", removing HDD, and nothing seems to work.

Thx
Haavis

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From: phil on 12/01/2010
to anyone having this issue, i fixed it simply by pulling on the cd rom cables and blowing the optical lens with canned air. i think the toshiba satellite models have really crappy cd roms, and thats what causes this for those models specifically. long term fixes may be just replacing the optical drive.
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From: Sundar on 12/01/2010
Hi all this is simple issues just remove your BIOS battery after boot system

Some times (not only every time) BIOS failure ERROR occurred enter twice system work well

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From: robbie on 12/01/2010
hi i have same problem, computer says PXE-E61 media test failure, check cable on my laptop toshiba NB200 then PXE-MOF: exiting PXE ROM. anyone know who fix this???
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From: china on 11/29/2010
haha so i tried hitting my laptop just like everyone else said but sadly it didnt work, so i just took off the bottom cover of my laptop and my hard drive wasnt in its place like it slid of. so i just put it back and my laptop works just fine now.!
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From: PsychoGeek79 on 11/29/2010
where is the hard drive to a gateway laptop?? I am getting that same "check cable" message and I have tried changing the priority for boot and everything else...please help!
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From: mickey on 11/26/2010
compaq presario V2000 had PXE-E61 error
i removed all bios boot order to off except CDROM
insert operation system CD (recovery disc)

i got an error that said
the file was corupt (below file)
<windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
i pressed enter it went to a screen with some writting on it i couldnt read it cos it was a quick screen well i just pressed down arrow and hit enter ....and she woke up ...ITS ALIVE
so i went back and changed bios to boot from HDD it workd
i tried hitting it ... nothing
reseated HDD.. nothing
Didnt put it in a bucket of soapy water as some morons think its funny
hope it helps some poor fellow out there

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From: Georgia on 11/26/2010
Had the same problem. I beat the crap out of my laptop and now it works...
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From: special lady on 11/18/2010
haaa yes well I did two things I hit my laptop and remove boot from network and now I am able to start up...
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From: Tim on 11/11/2010
popped the bonnet on my old ibm machine, pulled out the hard drive cable, a few taps on the top and bottom of the hard drive, put it all back together and the old girl booted up as normal.....thanks everyone.
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From: andrea on 11/11/2010
I am getting following error message

Broadcom base code pxe-2.1 v1.0.7

Copyright (C) 2000-2006, Broadcom Corporation

Copyright (C) 1997-2000, Intel Corporation

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting BroadcomPXE ROM.
operating system not found

But it won't let me go any further to install the operating system

could you tell me why maybe

thanks

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From: Dannie on 11/07/2010
ok so i am taking to my friend on yahoo....yahoo keeps freezing so he hits his computer...then gets the blue screen of death and and all those error messages...no hard drive and this and that....so i told him to hit/tap it and it work....OMFG it worked
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From: David on 11/05/2010
Got this error while fixing an Acer Aspire 3620.

It wouldn't boot from optical drive. I disabled D2D, and Network boot, and my boot order to: CD-ROM, Hard Drive, Floppy, Network.

It now boots from CD ROM and no more error.

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From: pete on 11/04/2010
i wish more computer problems could be fixed by wailing on it hahaha
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From: Maciej on 10/24/2010
This is a hard drive issue.
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From: boy2k on 10/13/2010
Solution (Dell Laptop): Just plug the hard drive back again, and it will work for sure.

Thanks everyone for posting.

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From: RagnaroK on 10/09/2010
Only thing that seemed to work is gently TAPPING it (dont BEAT your computer you fuckin noobs it is NOT AN EIGHTIES MODEL TV AND HAS A DELICATE SCREEN, DUH), resetting BIOS to default(after you do this you can access recovery whether you have formatted the drive before or not), setting hard drive as last in boot list, external cd/dvd next up on the list, and the first 4 i dont think matters. after that, save and exit. you will get the original network boot error code. hit alt+ctrl+del to instantly reset back to BIOS. disable the lan/network boot. disable then re-enable the D-somethin-somethin thing under it, save, then re-enable that(not the lan/network boot though). then save and exit(MAKE SURE THE TIME AND DATE IS CORRECT - IF IT ISNT I HAVE SEEN THIS CAUSE A MASSIVE SLEW OF PROBLEMS)... save and exit. now press alt+F10, then (right)alt+F10, then alt+del, then alt+del, reboot. it worked for me. the entire sequence was needed. none of them alone did it or even came close. you can also install whatever OS you want. it doesnt HAVE TO be Linux. I am installing windows on it right now. you also dont HAVE to have a Mac to run OSX. anyone that thinks a computer will only allow a certain operating system to run on it and only that operating system is ignorant. ive successfully run all 3 OS's... Windows, Ubuntu, OS X on slews of PCs and even Macs. You just have to hold your mouth right and study up on how to do these things. i hope this helped. There is always a better solution than hitting your computer. My 28 year old cousin threw a tantrum and smashed his 6 month old Macbook Pro(loaded) on the concrete and obliterated it all because it was "running too slow". People like that should be thrown against the concrete, not the computer - a computer is only as smart as the person running it.
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From: Colin on 10/06/2010
I had another error and the technician fixed that. Then I got this error. It was periodic and annoying. Generally it was and is worse after about an hour. Turning it off and letting it cool down generally fixes the problem. I have an Acer Aspire, with Windows XP which is lovely other than this infuriating issue. The thread here is very helpful. No long term solution, but surely getting there. Thanks.
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From: shawn on 10/04/2010
have compaq r4000 got pxe-e61 code bought new hard drive, still got code. so here i was reading all these to hit it. cant believe it did work
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From: Ace on 10/03/2010
i get the same message but my keyboard doesnt work
and the system restarts once or twice and the shuts down automatically.
plz help
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From: Ant on 09/29/2010
I have a inspiron, 1501 DELL. i beleave its a 06...Well My little girl pulled out the plug while I was online...And i tryed to restart it. and when it gets to the load part it restarts every time...I tryed changing bios. I tapped the bottom an dpu ton a hard surface lol. did not work. I did a dynostic check said my battery is not reconized but it has been working with that problem for a while now could that be why it keeps restarting?
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From: Cheryl on 09/28/2010
I dropped my Lenovo G550 laptop yesterday and also received the error message on bootup: PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable.

Thanks to this site, I am once again up and running. While not a technotard, I certainly am not qualified to be performing rescue procedures on laptops, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that just removing my hard drive, blowing on it and then ensuring the connection was in tight worked like a charm!

I was ready to throw my lovely laptop into the recycle bin. Thanks!

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From: quinn on 09/28/2010
Change your boot sequence in BIOS. Remove any network boot option (remote boot - talk to your IT guy if you're not sure) that is not available in your network. If you still want to keep the option but will boot from the C drive then make sure the HD0 precede the network one. Most home and private users don't have remote boot from network. just take them out of the boot sequence.
Good luck.
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From: Sam on 09/28/2010
I had this problem with a Vista Laptop. hitting it over and over again. tried removing Hard Drive and checking for loose pins. tried changing boot order.
NONE OF THEM WORK!

When I put a Vista Installation CD and did a Startup Repair, IT WORKED!

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From: Tessa Myren on 09/26/2010
I was helping a friend with her computer problems and discovered it had this problem. I tried banging on it and at first it didn't work. The trick that worked for us was to flip it upside down and tap gently on the hard drive. Then setting something under it to hold the hard drive in close to the computer. That seems to have worked really well.
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From: Chuck on 09/24/2010
I CANNOT believe this!!!!!!!! I have an Acer Aspire 4730Z. I got the "No Media Cable" message just like everybody else. When I read the first request to "bang on the computer until it works", I thought it was a joke. Until I read several other responses saying to do the same. I was going to trash my laptop and get a new one, but I banged it just to see...IT F***ING WORKED!!!!! UNREAL!
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From: raj on 09/20/2010
realy its work
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From: amazing on 09/19/2010
Beat on my machine like I was trying to kill it because I was so frustrated. Gave it one last shot and started up perfectly. Thanks
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From: Ben on 09/17/2010
I don't really understand any of these terms. What's BIOS? I get the PXE-E61 error message immediatly and my computer starts beeping every time I open it. It only loads the Toshiba screen and then goes to the PXE error. I tried the F2 method but it can't detect the HDD. I tried hitting it and blowing the connection and it still won't work. However, when I removed the HDD, it stopped beeping. Can someone please help me?
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From: joe on 08/30/2010
on hp dv1000 was getting 'media not found' on startup, when i tried reinstalling the os, both ubuntu and windows, they were saying 'no partition selected' and 'hard drive not found' paraphrased respectively. found the solution on this thread!, took out the hard drive, blew on the connections, then made sure it was snug back in place. now it's all systems go. just hope those other problems i've read about this model don't blow up on me, overhead, etc. seems a troublesome machine. but it's fine now, thanks guys!! much appreciated.
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From: BlowJob on 08/27/2010
Hasan's idea worked. I unplugged the cables, blew on everything, seated the cables securely and I'm up and running. Odd
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From: jeff on 08/23/2010
my gateway laptops updater tried to install bios update..it froze completely..after re boot i got the said error. hitting didnt work didnt feel right either. rearranging boot order didnt work turning off lan boot not working.changing sata mode to ide i can see hitachi drive.i save and exit then says windows loading files then the green bars for a while then nothing just black ...help please writing this on a ps3 is no fun.
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From: HASAN on 08/19/2010
If you have a desktop PC remove the cover. Pull out the connectors of the Hard disk and blow into them. Finally put them back together and iam sure the PC will boot
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From: Dean on 08/15/2010
There is really only one solution to this problem and strangely many things in life require this as does my girlfriend. If she is not working I beat her and she works. It's so simple. You remember the old TVs? Had to beat them too at times didn't we! I'm not advocating beating your computer but if it's just too lazy or dumb then do as Michael did and beat it.
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From: mosi on 08/14/2010
just beat it ....
it works ....
I swear guys ....
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From: Harri on 08/13/2010
Had the problem with a DELL Latitude D610. I removed the hard drive by first removing the 2 screws holding the HDD on the bottom of the laptop. The HDD is just below the PCI slot at the bottom left hand corner of the laptop if you hold it in the normal operating position.

Then just slide the HHD out by gripping the ridges on the case and sliding straight out. Clean outr the HDD contacts and re-insert firmly. Re-insert 2 screws.

This worked for me !!!!!!

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From: Wil on 08/11/2010
Having the same issue with an old Gateway M680. You have two options; either the hard drive or the broadcom wireless card. I replaced one at a time and it took both.
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From: kenneth on 08/09/2010
rt had teh same problem and tried hitting the hard disk and also removing and refitting the hard disk on my toshiba laptop...didnt work..like mentioned above in all the posts this is to do with the laptop not being able to find the bootable part of the hard disk or the hard disk at all..hence if the hitting and removing din work for u then fix ur hdd..use a windows installation disk and get to the part where it says repair windows..select command prompt from the options and then repair ur master boot record..full instructions here..http://www.ehow.com/how_4836283_repair-mbr-windows.html...
even tho im on windows 7 the mbr method worked for me...
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From: cynthia on 08/05/2010
I have a compaq presaro 2700 when i turn the comp on a black screen comes up when it is rebooting it gives me messages
1. check cable media test failure
2.existing intel pxe-rom
3.grub loading

than my computer keeps turning off it is fully charged for sure. but can anyone help me why it keeps turning off

email please @ ladgrs13@yahoo.com

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From: Jessica on 08/03/2010
I just punched my laptop up and it started working!! I'm so impressed that I had to call my friend up at 4.30 to inform him that I had fixed it :)
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From: ezyprofit on 07/30/2010
Hitting it worked for me thanks.
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From: vincent on 07/21/2010
It works!!!

Just check the cables to HDD.remove and plug again.

Thx for the advice..

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From: edny on 07/18/2010
Hi,
my relative had the same problem end we have just delivered the laptop to where it was bought, it should be covered by the guarantee since it is not a year since it was bought. At the store they say the guarantee will cover the expense if the reason for the trouble is hardware-related but not if it is software -related. Reading the previous answers it seems to be a hardware failure, so do you agree that we can keep on to that and feel very secure?
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From: IaraLopes on 07/17/2010
I notice one of the pin was bended
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From: Patrick on 07/10/2010
So I was having this problem after I spilled a drink on the half of my laptop that contains the HD. I read here that one suggestion was to "beat" on the hard drive so I pounded my fist against the bottom of it a few times. Worked like a charm and my computer is booting up just fine.

Thx for the great suggestion!

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From: Gene on 07/06/2010
Had this message/ fail to boot a few times:
Can be loose connector,
Also if failed CD/DVD drive when set to boot
from CD/DVD first (in desktop).
Or from network enabled (in BIOS) but not
connected.
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From: David on 07/04/2010
i have a compaq pressario 2200 it says pxe-e61 error message check cable and pxe-m0f and something for realteck ethernet controller it just keeps repeating that over and over agian any suggestions? u can email me at lildavy@hotmail.com thanks
pxe-e61 : media test failure check cable
pxe-m0f : exiting pxe rom


intel undi pxe-2.0 (build 082)

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From: Jarritt on 07/03/2010
Boys and girls, I just hit it hard and she works again. MINT!
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From: Stefan on 06/22/2010
This is directed specifically to 'Lynn', who can boot a Ubuntu disk.
I have been having a lot of problems with windows, probably 3rd party
incompatabilities, since I use freeware. At one time I had Ubuntu as
a dual boot.
I tried to make the boot order start with the CD drive, but then
noticed that the 'Main' was a external drive name and the in the
other boot order menu, was the built in drive. How do these things
Happen! I had to plug the external in and deactivate it with device
manager!Both names were same, BUT that didn't work either, So -
Drastic: I backed up all my files, and installed Ubuntu, which wiped
everything clean, and then re-installed Windows from Ubuntu!
Someone else besides me must think it's ironic, or hilarious, that
I could not restore to out of the box from the Windows platform!
Drastic, but works....Stefan
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From: Michael on 06/07/2010
I don't like the hitting part too much but in my case, I just had to re-write the master boot record. I used a vista repair utility disk. All is fine here again.
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From: Jarrod on 06/05/2010
@Jon

You may want to take a look at the connector inside the laptop (or have a technician look if its too far) there may be a loose pin on either the front or back (back connects to M'board). My presario laptop had a very similar problem. Took it all apart re-soldered the connection behind the connector as it was loose and now it works perfectly.

note: Before i soldered the connection the HDD would recognise 1 of 5 times i booted.

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From: noname on 06/03/2010
same problem /PXE-E61/
checked hard disk connection on my laptop; worked, just as explained above. thanks guys.
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From: Eugen K on 06/03/2010
Hi, guys!

Had the similar problem on my TOshiba satellite laptop.
Got all this messages and Bios did NOT see HD
The only thing that solved this was "Load default settings" in your BiOS

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From: Jon on 06/02/2010
I'm getting this error on my laptop. I just installed a new HDD.

The thing is, it did recognize the Win7 disc in the DVD drive, it installed fine and it IS booting from the HDD with no problem.

So, essentially, everything is working fine, yet I'm still seeing this error pop up during the boot. Any ideas?

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From: Jarrod on 05/30/2010
Alright Guys, theres not alot of understanding of whats actually going on here. the reason this error message is popping up is because its going through the boot list and is not finding a CD/DVD, HDD, or Floppy Disk with and OS Systems on them so its going to the 4th option which is the ethernet port (for OS systems hosted on LANS) and because theres no other recognised OS its telling you to insert a cable into the port (once you do it looks up on the DHCP Server and will most likely find nothing, unless you have this set up)

BASICLY your HDD is blank, broke, loose or plain screwing with you.

Hitting it: This method works because the HDD is loose. It knocks the HDD back into its respective slot properly (kinda luck tbh)

Removing and Inserting HDD: this method works because your resetting the connection and are able to make sure its in properly.

Boot Order: No idea how this works, maybe people are just getting lucky with the HDD finally deciding to stop messing with them after everything else is out of the Boot Order, or seeing as HDD is the last item on list it will be given more time to find it (as with the Ethernet Error)

Thanks and i hope i cleared it up for some people

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From: Lisa on 05/25/2010
I walked into my office to find a screen blinking the PXE-E61 error and splashes of lemonade on the keyboard. Naturally, I figured the problem was due to the spill. So, after sending the girls straight to bed (of course), I proceeded to attempt to take apart my laptop, thinking it was fubar'd anyway. Then the light bulb came on, and I realized I could look up the error with another laptop we have in the house.

Anyway, short story made long, I took out the hard drive and put it back in. Worked like a charm. Thanks for preventing me from senselessly prying apart my computer!

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From: Glenda on 05/21/2010
Hitting didn't do freakin' squat, just so y'all know. Hard drive was loose--it was out of its little docking place. So I took off the hard drive cover, slid the hard drive a little to the right, and put the cover back on. Flipped the computer over, turned it on, said a little prayer, and BOOYAH! It's alive!
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From: rob on 05/18/2010
i HAD the same error.
i thought that you guys posting the "hit it" method were joking.

finally after reading that many " just hit it" replies i did it.

WORKS GREAT NOW!

obviously something wrong with the mother board connections.

i am running outside now to try it with my old van that will not start.

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From: Tiffany on 05/09/2010
My laptop loads to a balck screen and says Media Test Failure- Check cables. Right underneath that it says No operating System Found. I know that the hard drive is still good because I have tried it in another computer and it boots perfectly fine. I have tried using my disc that came with my laptop but it says it can not load and of my drivers, or find my hard drive. But, when I go under my computer files, it shows me that my hard drive is there. I can hear a little rattling inside the laptop so I opened up the laptop and all the cables seem to be connected and in the right places but there were two tiny white circular pieces that were loose and just slide around, so I took them out. I believe that I need them for something because if I didn’t they would not be there. I am not sure what these pieces are or where they go? I would appreciate any help with this question. Thanks!

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From: Juan on 05/04/2010
I have a Dell Dimension 2350, and I keep getting a message that says "Media Test Failure, Check Cable" Ive checked them, and everythings connected, the only thing that I can think of is that somethings wrong in the BIOS, the computer had a floppy disk, but was removed, it currently has a CDrom and DVDrom. If someone could please help me I would greatly appreciate it.

Juancamceballos@yahoo.com

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From: jot on 05/02/2010
i came across the:

-E61:Media Test Failure, Check Cable
-MOF:Exiting Intel PXE ROM

Problem :

1) I hve 2 hard disk, the problem was, the 2nd(slave) hard disk is already crashed...What I did, I unplugged the hard disk cable..and

2) After restart the pc, it run back as normal..

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From: Lamar on 05/01/2010
It's funny that ubuntu was able to see the hard drive without any problems. Is this a plot to have you install ubuntu? I was planning to install ubuntu anyway, but I just think it is funny that ubuntu can see the hard drive and the bios can see the hard drive, but you get an error message to check the cable? WTF? Could not remove the network setting in the boot order and banging the notebook did not work either. But, ubuntu is working fine!
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From: HURK on 04/28/2010
My lappy actually has a "strike" zone on the bottom left. Yup, it worked.
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From: Lynn on 04/28/2010
I'm having the same problems working on a Toshiba Satellite m45-s355. Here's what I know so far:
PXE is a setting that allows you to boot from network. In the bios turn OFF the built in LAN setting. You may need to turn it on later, but to avoid the PXE error turn it off.
No Bootable Disc appears to be a bios update error. It appears the Bios on this machine - ACPI V1.6 - truncates file names to the old dos 8.3 standard, which means standard Windows discs won't boot.
I downloaded a Bios update from Toshiba, but the bootable CD iso must also use long file names(WTF???), since it isn't recognized either. I can happily boot with a Ubuntu Live disc, but I haven't found a method yet to reload windows.
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From: giulian on 04/24/2010
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
no bootable device found


Hi,
i have this error, i've tried to switch off/on the hard drive, but it doesn't worked. So i've booted the pc from the live of ubuntu linux, and i can mount all partition and see the data from the HD.

So the HD works ok, but when i boot from the hard drive, i have that error (in bios the boot order is ok).

Have some idea?

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From: uncle den on 04/12/2010
removed hard drive then refitted fixed it for me
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From: loseit on 04/11/2010
hp dv 9618ca, vista upgraded to windows 7, lightscribe dvd drive
the notebook is working fine with no error when boothing up, however, the dvd drive is not detected, i.e. not showing on my computer or the device manager.
so far I have tried:
registry filters- my computer only have the lower filter;
LS_HSI.msi to download the lightscribe driver - I used the forums but but was unable to download the driver - I get up to editor but did not find the version NT to change the version to 601 from 600;
error PXE - 61 :media test failure, PXE-MOF exiting Nvidia boot agent, operating system not found - I tried rearranging the boot drive and detached and reattached the HDD and DVD drive, they did not work.

I had a lot of sleepless nights, spent 150 hrs and about to give up, please help.

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From: joe of KC on 04/10/2010
I whacked it twice at the bottom and viola it worked. Seriously I am now sure what happened. I have tried many other things and non has been effective so far. Only the whack job did it.
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From: Akram Hussain on 04/07/2010
Enter BIOS setup. change the boot options to select the CDROM as the first boot device. save setting and exit . Boot your system from this CD.

e-mail me @:
akram_hussain96@hotmail.com


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From: Akram Hussain on 04/07/2010
Intel Base-Code, PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2001, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
Boot Failure: System Halted

help me

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From: Tine on 04/06/2010
Hello,

I'm helping a friend with some computer problems. I've got some (very) basic computer skills, but technically I don't know a lot about them.
This laptop is a Toshiba Satellite. When I try to start, it gives me this:

Press HOME key to abort RPL

LAN Adapter failed the media test.
Please check the cable and reboot the system.
PXE-MOF: Exiting Intel Boot Agent.
Insert system disk in drive.
Press any key when ready....

I've been looking around for help on the internet already, but haven't really found exact instructions.
Can somebody help? Please keep in mind that I'm quite a newbie (^_^).

Thanks!

Tine.

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From: MacDocPro on 04/03/2010
I have an old Toshiba Satellite 5105-S607. The Hard Drive died! I called Toshiba to get a Recovery Disk and the computer is so old they are not available anymore.

Bought a Windows XP Pro OEM Install Disk (SP-3) on eBay. Installed new HD that was pre formatted to NTFS. Put CD in drive and booted. Got Error Message:

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

As I am a "MacGeek" and not that familiar with the Windows OS, I searched the internet for an answer or a clue. Seems the BIOS on this machine is pre set to look for an HD to boot from. Discovered that the answer was to switch the computer off, restart and immediately hold down the F-12 key, (this may be different for your machine). This brings up a screen that displays "Toshiba" and has a series of icons across the bottom. These represent the Boot Options: CD, network, hard disk, floppy, etc. I then used the "Arrow" keys to navigate to the "Single Disk" icon. Not sure if choosing this one vs the "Multi Disk" icon makes any difference. Press "Enter". Things move along as expected from there.

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From: Rob on 04/01/2010
I forgot to transfer the IDE adapter from the old hard drive to the new hard drive no wonder why the laptop couldn't read my new hard drive. I feel like a dunce.
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From: Jodi on 03/31/2010
For those getting an error that includes "Operating System not found" and using a laptop simply reseat your hard drive and you will boot up normally.
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From: senthilr on 03/30/2010

1. check for the proper boot,bios settings

2. check for correct master slave settings

3. check for hdd -ide cable is intact

4. check if (male)pin no 18(gnd)-on the hdd side is properly connected to the IDE Cable . switch off the power and check the resistance between the cable.

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From: Diana on 03/28/2010
I tried change the BIOS boot order. That didn't work. Then I removed the hard drive and put it back in. That did the job! I carry my laptop around on a daily basis and since this thing is getting old, the hard drive probably came loose....
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From: Quicestraoul on 03/26/2010
Hi,
for me that was the HDD.
Thank's for your help.

Best regards

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From: Justin on 03/24/2010
On one of the computers I am working on I ran into the same issue after formatting the hard drive. (Yes, I work in IT) There is an issue with the BIOS that makes this happen in some cases.

SOLUTION - try the other solutions listed above also

1. Enter your computers BIOS by tapping F2 on startup
2. Remove everything but the CD/DVD drive and Hard Drive from the boot sequence (on this laptops Bios highlight the device and press x to remove it from the boot order, but it could be different on your computer)
3. Save and Exit the systems BIOS - Very important that you Save the settings before you exit.

When the computer restarts it should recognize the hard drive and boot normally (if you have an operating system loaded on the hard drive)

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From: Abdul Rehman on 03/21/2010
hello

well i am not here to replay
but to ask the answer of the similar problem which i have encountered
yesterday
whenever i start my computer it gives the message
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Existing Intel Boot Agent
1962: No operating system found
press F1 to repeat boot sequence

what does this means
during this once i went into the settings and change the settings to default which works but again when i tried to turn on the system same things happens and i could not abble to get into the BIOS Settings again.

please help me to cop this problem
how can i get rid of this problem

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From: Robert on 03/16/2010
Jason's solution of removing and resetting the HD fixed this problem for me. Thank you Jason, turned out to be an easy fix for my Thinkpad.
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From: Jason on 03/14/2010
Its probably not much help to most of you but I've been having the message PXE-E61: media test failure, check cable etc etc and I solved it by literally taking out my HDD from my laptop and putting it back, turned out it had a loose connection and now everythings fine.

Not saying this will fix it for everyone but just give it a try first :)

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From: Aaron on 03/12/2010
i have an Toshiba Satellite 350D
and i am getting the PXE-E61 error message...
none of your fail methods is working...
and how the fuck do you even access the bios without even being able to access your laptops desktop screen?
it makes no damn sense...
beating it half way to hell and back didnt work...
im not gonna dunk it into water cause we all know what water does to electronic devices (shorts out and nulls all circuitry in the machine)..
and your idea of swapping the order of boot devices failed too...
i am not about to dunk it into water for it is my aunts laptop...
and im not a techy... so yah...
some more logical ideas and solutions would be most appreciated

email me at: king_arbiter_shade@hotmail.com

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From: raytheon on 03/11/2010
Intel (R) Boot Agent GE v1.2.50
Copyright © 1997-2007, Intel Corporation

Intel ® Boot Agent PXE Base Code (PXE-2.1 build 086)
Copyright © 1997-2007, Intel Corporation

PXE-E61: media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent


help guys i need a solution to this problem..it's been for days..pls help me...

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From: Mike on 03/11/2010
Resetting the BIOS worked for me, I didn't want to hit it unless it was a last resort, this thing's gettin old.
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From: Janice on 03/09/2010
When trying to reset the boot order, I get a message asking me to enter a password. Never created a password. How do I reset the boot password?
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From: Andrew on 03/09/2010
The PXE-E61 error is a network boot msg which pops out when BIOS set Network card as primary Boot device.
Second possibility, is to check your HDD connection. If connections are firmly in tact, then it's probably a faulty HDD.

remove the HDD and test it on another working PC

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From: chris on 03/04/2010
that was the last thing i thought wouldve worked..but it did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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From: richie on 03/04/2010
thanx dave. that worked great, cheers man :)
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From: dave on 03/04/2010
i dipped mine in a bucket of warm soapy water..... and my problem seemed to go!!
i strongly advise u follow this, u will not be disappointed
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From: Myloungphoung on 03/01/2010
thumbs up on Mark's MOM!
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From: Rajesh on 03/01/2010
Or your could try Mark's mom.
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From: Lo on 02/24/2010
I also have the same problem as you Chris the HD is making a noise/ vibrating. Any solutions to this? Thanks
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From: Anne on 02/24/2010
I fixed the problem by removing the faulty RAM and put tighter screws on HDD frame. Problem was fixed.
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From: Chris on 02/19/2010
Ive just had this error message come up and my computer fails to boot. My problem is also accompanied by a loud vibrating sound from the HD which no one else has mentioned. Im guessing the error itself signifies a problem with accessing the hard disc which could be something to do with the bios or something mechanical like wiring. Mine is definitely a mechanical problem and although I can see how hitting it may work in some cases it hasn't in mine. As they use such small screws with such stupid shaped heads it looks like a new drive for me.
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From: Santino on 02/19/2010
I too have the same problem. I already tried goin in and re-installing my HD, didnt really work because i didnt have the right screw driver. I reset my boot order to load off a boot disk. I didnt try it yet, but i am curious to know if it will work, being that the HD is "loose."
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From: HENRY on 02/19/2010
If you own a Toshiba laptop... Before you go out and buy a new drive, hold the computer by a corner vertically with the bottom facing you. smack the bottom all over with the palm of your hand but not so hard to break it. This solved the problem for me. Also do it with the computer powered down so that you don't crash the heads into the platters.
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From: Mike K on 02/17/2010
Ok First of all beating on things doesn’t fix stuff. LOL If it seems it did all you achieved in doing was basically reseating a loose hard drive. Having built many a system the Beating Idea made Me think. I have an HP Pavilion ze2000 laptop. I've already had to desolder the bios battery holder and have had the system torn all the way down. So having done this I know how many different parts there are that can become "LOOSE". Lets face it it's a laptop, meaning that the thing is lugged around all the time, bounced around and even in a padded carrying case it does take some shocks that would leave some of us bruised and battered and not wanting to work either! Have see that a lot pointed to the hard drive area I simply removed the HD cover (two small Phillips screws on the cover with a little symbol of a hard drive platters(disks)) once I got it open I saw that one of the screws holding the metal shielding (and drive holder) had backed out just enough to not allow the hard drive to be fully seated, and I guess with all the bumping around it had popped the drive loose from the connector. I simply lifted (grab hold of the lil cloth tab and lift straight up) the hard drive out and tightened the retaining screws on the metal case (4 of them, one at each side corner of the drive). I then reinstalled the drive (make sure you align the one end of the drive and then with firm but gentle pressure push the end of the drive with the connector straight down). Once I did this I powered it up and POOF it worked great, booted with only a verifying screen asking is I wanted to do a normal windows boot.

Hope this helps some. And Like I said don't beat on a computer, there has to be a reason it stopped working, it's not too hard to figure it out. Hell you got here just by typing the error message you saw and that was half the battle!

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From: caleb on 02/15/2010
******************* SOLUTION ************************
In BIOS if you have a 'fail-safe setup' option USE IT
In BIOS if you have a 'reset to default' option USE IT

I was running one 3X5 IDE with XP and one SATA with Vista and wanted to format both and use XP on the SATA with the IDE as storage - none of my bios settings changed, so it was very strange that I needed to put the bios options to default - I never used network boot and I didn't have any loose cables etc - but for some reason the 'fail-safe setup' option for me worked great - then after I had updated drivers I was able to tweak my BIOS to the way it had been before. Strange glitch - easy fix.

I had this problem on a PC with a K7n2 board with a sata drive and XP-SP3 and as people have mentioned below it SEEMS to be a network-boot problem, what it is (and this was stated below) is a BIOS problem - just reset the bios to default or fail-safe settings - should be fine thereafter

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From: tun on 02/08/2010
hi, I still have the same problem with my laptop hp dv2000, I tried to opend the frame and put it back together.. not coming up with bios option.can you explain me how to fix it , thanks,pls send me in my email: naylintun01@yahoo.com, pls help
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From: Sparxz on 02/01/2010
I got a second-hand Toshiba, as described.
I used to be a repair PC for a living[Tech/Eng], and I thought, I would share the solution, as it is not described here yet.

The problem is either caused by a faulty hard drive/connector
disconnection or a bug in the boot up BIOS.

A 'Live boot disk' will not find this error.

So to elimate all faults from basics to more advanced.

When Laptop boots hit F2 to force into, BIOS mode.
Manually note all the unique settings that were set
either by supplier, or previous owner.

Go to the option where it resets BIOS to DEFAULT settings, Save/Exit,
and then reboot. This will over write the bug in BIOS chip memory.
This should clear the error described in the original post.

You 'may. need to manually re-insert any unique manual settings to the
BIOS.

My Laptop also had a faulty hard drive, which I replaced.
the type needed is an older internal 2'5 IDE type. These are more
difficult to buy, as most new Hard drives are now 2'5 SATA.

Borrow a functioning 2'5 IDE hard drive for test purposes
from a PC technician, to test in your own unit to see if you
need a replacement hard drive. Size of test drive is not important.

Prepare a well lighted work area.
Use may like to use a handy Camera in Macro mode in case you forget what each stage should look like in reverse !
Get 4 small containers for seperate sets of screws(do no mix different thread types, when rebuilding.
Turn off Laptop & Turn Laptop over
Put on an anti-static wrist strap[other wise you will destroy static -sensitive hard drive].
Using a philips head screw driver remove 1st single screw to the
DVD drive. DVD drive slides out.
Remove cover and shielding to access hard drive.
remove.
Swap hard drive out for new or test unit.
Check your internal cables before you rebuild PC[You may want to refer to your photos !]
Re-boot PC.
If error came on as described in original post do the BIOS
reset as described earlier, in case the BIOS can not identify
hard drive[Happens more often then you might think (1/10 times]
Re-Boot.

Hopefully you have enough info here to pin point problem and
repair.

If you end up installing a new hard drive, it will come
blank if new.
You will have to install a new operating system.

I recommend Linux based, as it will preserve your hard drive
lifetime better than windows types.
Linux does not fragmnet data, so does not have to defragment.
Every unnecessary access to your drive, wears out drives faster
in the long term.

[I am using SUSE for 6 years], and Ubuntu are popular choices, and you can do a dry run without
installing, using live CDROM/DVD that will not touch hardrive,
but run for a session only in temporary memory.

LINUX is always, and always be free[OPENSOURCE]. Download ISO image,
or buy a Linux magazine, and get ISO from that.

Please if you have useful solutions, post them to the internet, so they can be picked up in search engines, and it will keep
the inte

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From: chelsea on 01/29/2010
u guys are crazy, it didnt work for me, and i slapped the shit out of it!!!!!!!
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From: adnan on 01/25/2010
yes (media test failure check cable pxe-e61) toshiba is the hdd

YOUR HARD DRIVE FAILURE YOU NEED TO REPLACE IT OR YOU NEED TO TAKE IT OUT AND PUT IT BACK IN AND IF IT DONT WORK THEN YOU HAVE TO REPLACE YOUR HDD K

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From: Jemma on 01/24/2010
OMG...it actually worked...turned the laptop off. Turned it over..slapped it on the backside a few times and it works. Wished that worked as well with my children.

Thanks all!!

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From: Wendy on 01/24/2010
I have the PXE-E61 Media test failure error today and have tried bashing it like mad but with no response. Although I am naive re: laptop maintenance I took the bull by the horns and finally determined which "bit" to unscrew and extracted it. No prongs were broken or bent. How do you know when your hard disk has given up the ghost?
I have been into BIOS and gone to the menu which allows you to test your HDD but although I can highlight the entry, it will not respond to an Enter (return) and therefore does not run the test.

Is there any quick way to tell whether the disk itself is gone or whether it is not being recognised for some other reason??

I tried putting in the Repair CD and it says, of course, that there is no hard disk showing. I have a Presario R3145ea laptop.

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From: Tom on 01/23/2010
I am also AMAZED to find that, in a sitting position, thumping it firmly (but not so it hurt me) on my lap has solved the problem! Thanks all!
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From: DEN on 01/19/2010
SAME AS THE REST I HIT IT BUT WITH NO JOY, SO I UNDONE ETC, THEN LATER I HELD IT FROM CORNER TO CORNER AND SHUCK IT REALLY HARD AND A LAST REALLY HARD HIT UNDER BOTH ENDS AND THEN IT WORKED. I DID TRY INSTALLERE WITH ANOTHER OPERATING DISC AND IT DONE IT AGAIN SO I DONE THE REMADY AGAIN AND FULL INSTALLED WINDOWS 7 AND YES IT WORK GREAT NOW.IVE GOT A FEELING ITS DUST OR NICATINE ON MOTHERBORAD?
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From: le babes on 01/18/2010
I hit my computer and now its even more broken. thanx
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From: nishchaya on 01/18/2010
if you have a desktop i have a solution
you just take out the cover of your CPU
take out the hard disk
shake its wires
remove and reattach them it will work properly
it is a tested method
i have done it on my 2 pcs
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From: Jimmy on 01/18/2010
I was having this problem (along with a few others). The computer was starting up, I gave it a few light smacks and it worked. I'm not sure if this was what fixed the problem, but it's nice to be working.
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From: Martin on 01/17/2010
Although completely skeptical about the "hitting it" solution, we tried to fix our seemingly complicated problem (with same error message), we did it & it worked!!! Thanks! Try it before spending lots of money at a repair shop!
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From: Yangoadie on 01/14/2010
I whacked the piss out of this machine, gently but firmly at first, moving up incrementally to more violent strokes. This method was not successful for me. (Compaq Presario V5000). Took it apart, fiddled with the hard drive connector and then everything else that could be fiddled with, no luck. Also blasted it with compressed air. The hard drive works fine in a USB external drive mount, so it must be something wrong on the motherboard. I guess I'm getting a new computer.
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From: jman on 01/12/2010
just undo the screws. and plug the hard drive back into the docking station. That is the problem. There is a disconnection between the hard drive and the rest of the computer. this can happen from basic rough transport. Good luck yall. just fixed mine today in 5 minutes and $0.
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From: beckka on 01/12/2010
have this error ...tried loading in safemode ... and then restoring the system ... this works as long as you dont turn off the laptop or put it in sleep ... I pushed my harddrive ... and this works as well x
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From: laura on 01/11/2010
Okay, I came here looking for a solution to this error in the hopes there would be something a little more sophisticated than I knew... since I had, indeed, already tried giving it a good whacking tap in what I hoped were a couple of strategic areas.

Four times, directly on the bottom, with firm vigor (but not violence), has (at least for the time being) cleared this problem up. I did it with the wrist that is currently in a hard fiberglass cast: that's my tech tip. I have to laugh that it actually worked.

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From: brennan on 01/11/2010
i can't get into the bios i've been holding the f2 key, the f10 key the delete key, and still no bois i've hit the it a few time on the bottom and both side and still nothing
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From: Craig on 01/06/2010
I have followed the pack and hit the back of my old Toshiba laptop and slaped each side. Was getting the PxE - EE61 media test failure, check cable adn PXE - MOF: Exiting PXE ROM. You guys are awsome. Thanks.
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From: Baz on 01/06/2010
I was about to have kittens due to this error and resorted to the 'whack'.....OMG!! it actually worked

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From: Luigi on 01/04/2010
It does not WORK!!! Stop posting those nonesense about hitting it.... it DOES NOT WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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From: OMG on 01/02/2010
THANK YOU SO MUCH! i hit it on the bottom hard and it works!!!!!!!!!! woooo!!
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From: Casey on 01/01/2010
Well, I'll be dipped if the "Whack" to the side didn't work for me. A couple of nice whacks to the left side and a couple on the bottom and my laptop booted right up. Thanks for the head's up, saved me time and money.

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From: Cowman on 12/31/2009
LOL, the whacking idea did work i was bout to be msd as shit
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From: Jason on 12/31/2009
Its funny, I followed your guy's advice about hitting it four times after getting the cable failure message and it worked fine for me as well.

Can believe it. but it works, try it people. lol just kidding. You need to disable to Network LAN bootup from your bootup menu under bios.

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From: little e on 12/31/2009
After reading up all these comments of this problem I followed someone advice to "HIT ON THE BACK OF THE NOTEBOOK 4 TIMES" and it DID work.
I laughed about it and now passing this message to you. wow... I can't believe there could be solutions like that till this day.
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From: D. on 12/30/2009
when i run a BIOS FLASH
will this delete all my files. all my hard work in school?
black screen thes beeps constantly.

this shows up right after.


PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cabe
PXE-M0F:&#65279; Exiting PXE EOM.
No bootable device -- insert book disk and press any key

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From: madmax on 12/27/2009
omg, year is dec 26 2009. my Acer Aspire one goes to 'sleep' after starting up and hung at loading the apg$%^ driver. tried to boot up using CD ROM bootable CD. That is when I encountered the media test failure check cable. I HIT the sucker 4 times on the bottom and VOILA !!! problem solved. I can now boot the laptop. someone must have dropped the notebook earlier.... THANKS
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From: Rick on 12/26/2009
The error indicates networking is enabled in the BIOS, but the real problem is that it is not booting to the hard drive. The error can be eliminated by selecting "disable" in the BIOS which btw is not part of the boot order, or in some cases changing the boot order will have effect, but that doesn't explain how the error develops without BIOS tampering and will not solve anything if/when the error is caused by a hard drive or motherboard failure. Apparently Acer models 5100,3100 and 5110 laptops which use an identical motherboard and case design commonly develop this problem. I believe picking up these models by the front corners causes a flexing of the motherboard due to weakness of the case which in turn breaks/loosens a soldered electrical connection on the motherboard which requires advanced skills to repair or replace the motherboard.
Ebay is loaded with them being parted out, sold "as is" or for parts often described as having a hard drive problem (not motherboard problem) probably due to the outrageously high prices of working motherboards and the commonness of the problem. I determined with absolute certainty that my particular Acer 5100 motherboard developed the above described open circuit by placing the removed motherboard on a table connected to an external monitor and power supply with a screwdriver handle raising the corner of the motherboard near the hard drive and pressing downward nearby, bending/bowing the motherboard which caused it to boot to the desktop and run perfectly, but failure to boot when pressure is not applied. It seems likely an impact to the bottom of the laptop can cause desired results in such a situation, but unlikely to solve the problem for long. Based on my costly experience: I believe many, if not most, of this error regarding the mentioned models and probably many other brands/models boils down to motherboard failure caused by poor physical laptop handling habits which wouldn't happen with a sturdier designed laptop, therefore I now always pick up any laptop near the hinges which I highly recommend, and have since chosen a different brand, which I also recommend.
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From: Distressed Damsel on 12/25/2009
Hooray it worked!!! Thank you for the whack-y tip folks!!!
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From: Kirk on 12/23/2009
Holy crap it works!!!! Thanks guys
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From: maryam on 12/20/2009
hey
i have tried the bashing and it doesnt work
my pxe-e61: media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: existing Pxe rom

kepps appearing and disappering
and does any1 what i should do

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From: jspank on 12/20/2009
Found the problem was a bent up pin on the hard drive connections. Repaired the pin and viola! Check your hard drive pins on the hard drive and on the laptop. Should there be an adapter for your hard drive make sure the numbers face up and check to see if there is a bent tab on that. That was where I found my problem. Good luck!
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From: Nithin on 12/20/2009
Tried the "whacking" solution to a brand new Lenovo Y550 that was having the PXE-E61 issue.. I have to admit, this is the best "technical" solution I've ever seen!! :-) Worked like a charm!!
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From: Mural on 12/19/2009
Wow..I smacked 4 times on both ride and left side of my laptop. Guess what..It worked...!! Thank you folks for an awesome quick fix.

Cheers.

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From: fun4al on 12/18/2009
All the banging going on it's almost sinful??? I solved my problem on a Toshiba Satellite M35x-S161 Laptop. It all had to do with the seating of the Hard Drive. The plastic cover mounted to the Hard Drive by 2 screws and attached to the laptop by one screw that fits into a countersink hole. You can use this hole to see if your Hard Drive is pushed into its socket far enough to make good contact. Remove the screw and verify that thethreaded hole in the hard Drive is in the center of the countersink. If it's not in the center, when you put the screw back in the countersink will pull the Hard Drive loose. The Fix... with the countersink screww removed, push very hard on the Hard Drive to insure it is seated in it's socket. Look at the countersink hole to make certain that the threaded hole is in the center, if so, put the screw in and tighten lightly. That should fix the problem. If not aligned remove the hard Drive and loosen the two screws holding the plastic cover. Just loose enough to be able to move the cover with moderate force. Replace the Hard Drive pushing firmly to seat it in it's socket and replace the countersink screw. It worked for me. It may be setup differently on other computers but remember the problem is that the "Hard Drive is not Seated". I hope this helps?
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From: cayke on 12/17/2009
Smacking it on the bottom hasn't worked for me yet, can someone give me any other solutions before i go and get the pneumatic drill on my laptop
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From: Jack on 12/16/2009
The whack worked
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From: Mia on 12/15/2009
Hello Everyone, i know the posts are old, but i am having the same issue. Samsung say to me 'save everything on your D Drive and restore' i do this and loose 3500 photos and my 4000+ itunes and everything else. NOT HAPPY!!!
So from your replies i see that its somethng thats not connected correctly? I am not computer literate so worry about doing anything to my Laptop since the D Drive incident i have downloaded what was left.

Also when i start the laptop up it beeps continously whilst loading and my only options are F2 or F12 to load.

Can anyone help or point me in the right direction please?

Thanks

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From: Tyler A. on 12/14/2009
I have a Compaq evo D500. I get this screen while booting:

Intel(R) boot Agent Version 4.1.08
Copyright (C) 1997-2002, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media Test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent.


Then the next screen is:

Non-System disk or disk error
replace and strike key when ready


I have already tried hitting it. That didnt work. So i took it apart, and found no cable unplugged or loose. Have any ideas whats wrong here?

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From: tyler on 12/12/2009
OMG! Smacking it REALLY does work! :] thanks everyone!!! usually you wouldn't want to wack it cuz you'll just make it worst BUT this time it works! hahha thanks again!
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From: Beatrice on 12/12/2009
U know, giving it a good whack at the bottom worked here too *LOL*
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From: Pete on 12/11/2009
The issue is most likely that your hard disk has come loose from the socket. You need to open the hard disk enclosure (for a laptop) and usually you can stich a screwdriver in at the opposite end from the socket and push the disk in.

The error is because you have the network as one of the boot devices, the BIOS tries for the disk but doesn't find it, probaby tries the DVD/CD next with no luck so then tries the network and gives the error you see.

I just fixed an ASUS laptop with this problem by reseating the hard drive in it. The reason the hitting works, especially hitting on the right side, is that it jolts the disk in slightly so it is again making a connection, but the connection will be poor and is likely to be lost again if the laptop gets another knock.

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From: Amy on 12/11/2009
I'm getting the same message on my HP Pavillion:

PXE-E6: Media Test Failure, Check Cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel Boot Agent

I've tried whacking it as well, although Im not sure if I'm doing it hard enough, and I'm still getting the same message. I know nothing about computers but I've heard that this is a common problem among PC Notebooks? All I want to know is if files can be extracted...at this point I could care less about the computer, I'm over this pos and getting a new one anyways but theres 1 particular file that is saved on the desktop that my grade this semester is riding on and I need it ASAP.

Someone help. I need the reassurance...

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From: mkireland on 12/10/2009
Dudes this is all to funny. I was working on an old Compaq laptop for a friend. I was getting the failure message and couldn't do anything for a few days. I saw these posts and figured I could beat the heck out of the bottom or throw it at the wall and sure enough I was able to boot it and restore restore the system.

Now the question is - Is there a loose wire or was the cd stuck. Sooner or later I assume something has to come completely loose?

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From: Jake on 12/10/2009
A friend's Acer Aspire 5102WLMi was stuck in a loop at boot: PXE-E61 AND PXE-MOF. I was really surprised, but smacking the bottom worked!
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From: Scott on 12/08/2009
Slapping the bottom of the laptop really worked and saved me alot of money....thanks alot !!!!!!
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From: GollygoogleyGoo on 12/07/2009
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
_ _
. .

O
\___________/

I'VE FOUND THE 10000000% SOLUTION!!!
I work for Microsoft in the DownTec PXE-2886 sector of the Technical DOS and Managing BIOS 'solutions division' where we resolve this problem 100's of times a day, where computers are sent back to us under warranty. We discovered that on our lunch breaks when we ordered a KFC, there appeared to be only 6pc chicken in the Bargain Bucket. Then i put it on its side and BASHED the botton really hard 4 times and 8pc chicken came out VOILA!!! :)

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From: wadamus on 12/06/2009
I have Acer 7720-6182. Got the PXE cable error.

I have check on other comp that my hard drive is OK, so I got back some of the confidence that the hard drive is OK, its just a matter of loose cable or somehow BIOS settings changed. I don't know how but it turned out that in the BIOS my SATA MODE setting was switched to AHCI MODE. I gave a try with IDE MODE and Success!!!

If someone wants to disable PXE settings I have found it under Network Boot (didn't work for me).

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From: Michelle on 11/26/2009
Thanks for the "hitting" suggestion....it really worked for me as well..weird!
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From: marco on 11/20/2009
pxe-e61:media test failure check cable"
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From: Javani on 11/20/2009
Smacking at the Bottom really works!!!! Thank you GUYS!!!!! Had the same problem this Morning!!!!
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From: Marty on 11/17/2009
I had the same problem and just like magic!! and I really mean magic it worked!! Thank you guys for your "smack down" post. Who knew the Fred FLintstone approach would work.
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From: Alain on 11/17/2009
I have a problem with this too with a desktop PC, what is strange about is that when i get this message and i check the bios config i see my DVD drive is not recognized. Being a rookie in this I changed from master to slave in the DVD drive and then it is recognized but when i put a DVD in to boot to do an installation then it doesnt boot. Please any help would be appreciated.
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From: arturslv on 11/17/2009
like i was sitting in internet, when my avira shows that theres a virus somewhere in local settings. well i delete it, and the laptop(fujitsu siemens amilo 7000-something) goes black screen. i swithc it off. turn it on. try every mode to switch on. will have to try whacking it.
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From: Felix on 11/15/2009
Same problem occured without any obvious reason after several update and cleaning procedures in Windows XP followed by a system crash. Solved it by changing the booting order of the internal harddisks.
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From: LapTop Smacker on 11/12/2009
I cannot believe this worked. Our sales lady told me that all the data was on the hard drive and that her hard drive crashed.

I got the same error. Smacked the bottom of the computer a couple of times.. .and walah... it powered right up!! Thank you for the advice..

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From: bian on 11/12/2009
I tried throwing the machine out the window to give it a bang and it didn't work. any suggestions ?
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From: Felix on 11/09/2009
Those of you who posted about the media failure thank you fiddling with the bottom of the computer making sure every thing is secure was an excellent suggestion my computer is working again.
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From: malo on 11/08/2009
It is actually true; acer travelmate 5510 with error:

media test failure; check cable
exiting PXE rom

harddisk failure on boot (seagate)

fiddled with the harddisk with no luck;

smacked the bottom and side as presribed above; reboot and back in business!! Really. Apparently harddisk locked somewhere.

Time to execute a backup routine!

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From: Bob on 11/07/2009
I had the Same problem with my acer aspire 5101 laptop.. I tried smacking it a couple of times on the bottom and the right side.. I Turned my laptop on and guess what?? It really worked!!! If you're having the Same problem just try it, you'll be surprised!! Good luck and thnx guys for the tips on this website
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From: Cindi on 11/04/2009
I tried the advice of shutting it down and smacking the right side and believe it or not.....it worked!!!!! Toshiba Satellite. Hopefully that fixes the problem. I also just pressed the battery in a bit. So who knows. I would have never thought of smacking it!!!
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From: Melissa on 11/04/2009
Ok, so we had the same problem with our Acer Aspire 5515, "Operating system not found" and "Media test failure, check cable"
I looked on several forums to get an answer and most said that the hard drive was gone and since it was still supposedly under warranty (I have only had it 6 months) I could call acer and they would help. I called Acer and they said "no, your warranty is only 90 days." I said, thats strange considering I'm holding papers here saying my warranty is for 1 year. Frustrated with the lack of help I got from them I continued to look on forums and found this thread. With so many people saying "give it a good whack and it will work" I figured I would give it a shit... if for no other reason than to release many hours of aggrevation. Sure enough, while it was powered off, I whacked it moderately hard 3 times on the bottom, turned it on and it worked! I have no explanation for this at all, but just wanted to say thanks to everyone who gave that advice - you saved me a lot of money I would have thrown into fixing this machine.
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From: kristen on 11/02/2009
hey everyone,
i resently got a new laptop the Acer aspire 5536
and last night i was just sitting on msn when it crashed now when i turn it on it comes up with
Broadcome UNDI PXE-2.1 v11.4.1
copyright (c) 2000-2008 broadcom Corporation
copyright (c) 1997-2000 Intel Coroporation
all rights reserved

Broadcome Base Code PXE-2.1 v1.1.0
copyright (c) 2000-2008 broadcom Corporation
copyright (c) 1997-2000 Intel Coroporation
PXE-E61: Media rest failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM.
Operating System not found.


PLEASE HELP ME.
i have assignments that need to be completed.
this is urgent.

thank you.

please email me on
miss-kristii@hotmail.com


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From: Dione on 11/01/2009
Thank you Malcolm,
I was receiving the same PXE error. I called customer care of the maker of my computer and they said something was wrong with my hard-drive and that every thing on my computer would be ereased and I needed to send my computer to them so they could look at it. then I got a second opionon and this company told me the same thing, "That nothing would be recovered".

I read your post and I turned my computer over and fiddled around and made sure everything was secure, and I kid you not my computer is working.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Thank You sooooo much.

DioneD

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From: Dominic on 10/28/2009
if you have the PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable problem just go into your bios and change the boot device from booting from network it's all i did and it works.
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From: Malcolm on 10/24/2009
I had the same problem and spent hours messing around with BIOS, trying various boot orders, to no avail.
Then, after reading some of the other solutions here, I inspected my PC and noticed a section of my ThinkPad's case was cracked and there was something sticking out. I pushed it in and rebooted my PC and it worked.
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From: OMG on 10/23/2009
I cannot believe that this worked, i was getting all pissed off because nothing on this forum worked, so I ran up kicked my machine a few times thought about tried to start it up and vola! It works wth!
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From: steve-o on 10/12/2009
Ibm Think pad- little whack to the hdd carriage cover. it reset and i was up and running after reboot
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From: Paxalot on 09/24/2009
I tried resetting the boot order - did not help. I opened my Dell PowerEdge 1800 server and checked every SATA cable. Restarted normally. It must have been a loose cable. There were no obviously loose cables.
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From: colin on 09/23/2009

just befor i go and do somthing with comos or ram i thought i would give you somthing to think about i have scrolld this whole post ,so tied
a fix for new system xp or 2ooo 99 pecent but only for certain problems

what you will need internet access ,a disc with an operating system xp or 2ooo, a floppy drive

step 1 download from microsoft on to floppy when prompted for xp or 2ooo bootable disc its 6 floppy for xp and 4 for 2000

step 2 you need to make your floppy in your bios primary thats first to load .its all differant for makes but if you google somthing like make of com/lap and the word bios you should find somthing you can work with

step 3 fier up your system and start loading your floppys until finish then use your os disk and see what options windows gives you repair or new system bla bla bla

the floppys are free but you must have some sort of operating os disk in the first place to finish the job

hope this helps and it will
regards colin

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From: nanasi on 09/23/2009
yes! amazing! a couple firm but not too hard whacks with my right hand on the right side of the computer got it up and running. the computer just needed a spanking:)! thanks for the advice everyone.
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From: Ezzy on 09/15/2009
WHACKING IT, IS THE FUTURE!! T_T tears of joy from seeing it load up the windows screen.
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From: Gary on 09/12/2009
I had same problem. I changed the hard drive and problem solved.

So I am now buying anew hard drive !!

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From: James on 09/11/2009
I had swapped the hard drives and did a Backup Exec System Restore in my system and got this error. The system would boot up no problem as long as I had the Backup Exec System Recovery CD in, but when I took it out and tried to reboot I got this error. Upon further investigation I discovered that the new hard drive was setup to be a slave and not a master. I made the changes to the pins and it booted without issue.
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From: Dadman on 09/09/2009
I found my problem was a faulty memory DIMM. Removed it, problem gone. Added the DIMM to another laptop same exact model, and the other laptop started having the problem. Pulled it out, problem gone.
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From: özcan on 09/02/2009
Hi, there is another bad case like my problem. HDD doesn't work now. I tried with a new one, it works... Your HDD can be died.
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From: Nina on 08/31/2009
Hi, I had the same problem as everyone here... installed a new hdd on old computer and after getting the infamous error I tried the above solutions but they all failed.
Then eventualy I changed the IDE cable (luckily had a spare one) and this helped! XP installed with no problems after that. It's only a spare PC but I'm glad I managed to bring it back to life ;-)
I guess women can fix things too :P
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From: El Nando on 08/28/2009
until this morning my laptop (toshiba Satellite S5100)worked fine.
but today it "woke up" very slow, in fact, stupidely slow.
Even on safe mode it was very slow. Tryed system restore but it just would get anywhere.
after accepting defeat i began backing up some files to format the computer, but a blue screen came up, which i barely got a chance to read.
Tryed restarting it and am having trouble booting xp professional.
It takes about 3-5 mins of a black screen and then it gives me "pxe-e61 Media Test failure
Insert System Disk"

I tryed to boot it from my xp cd and it doesnt go anywhere.

At this point i could not careless for the files.
I tryed banging it, it made me feel great but the laptop is still stuck in the same place.
Is there any thing else anyone thinks i should be doing?
shall i start kicking it?
I cant even get into Bios.
Is my laptop dead?
My email is elnandovasquez@gmail.com

hope you can help me out

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From: epeneth on 08/27/2009
my pxe problem with windows server 2003 when i on the system the message is reboot and select proper boot devise as the server smps which is of 550w is out and it has been replaced by 460w smps may be due to this that it is not booting any one pls reply.
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From: Gaurav on 08/21/2009
So where do u hit on CPU.


kharvag@yahoo.com

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From: Thomas on 08/21/2009
Hitting not only made it start working, it may me feel better also.

Thanks for the help.

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From: tressy on 08/20/2009
i have an older dell desktop with the same error message "pxe-e61"....it's been down for 2 weeks...just working on it when i get time...it would get stuck at "loading user preference"...ect...I couldn't even get into safemode!!!
I finally thumped it a couple of times on the left side....VOILA!!! i'm back up and running!!! Unbelievable!! To think ...I thought I needed a new hard drive...
Thanks to this message board...or I would have NEVER figured this one out!!
Thanks Thanks Thanks to all of you posters!!!!
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From: dj on 08/20/2009
Hey everyone,

If you're trying to fix the
PXE-E61 Media test failure, check cable...

Instead of whacking it on the left side...maybe that will work for you like it did for others but open up the panel for the hard disk and make sure it is seated all the way in so that none of the pins are showing. I tried taking out the hard disk and putting it back in a few times but the third time a pushed it a little harder and it went in all the way. I put the panel back on and turned on the power and it worked perfectly. Everything...(files, software, internet works fine)

Thanks
dj

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From: Max on 08/18/2009
OMG!! the whole whacking idea works really great. I have an HP dv1000 and i bought a replacement HD. The same error everyone else had but after bout 4 hours of pointless fidgeting and just got frustrated and smacked it once on the side and it snapped into action. Spoil the rod and spare the child. LOL
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From: Nanook on 08/12/2009
I can confirm that changing the boot priority order has cured this problem for me. I had installed a new motherboard into my Dell Inspiron 6400 and it kept on coming up with this failure message. Reprioritising to put the HDD as the priority boot source and the problem has gone away...
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From: Satwant on 08/12/2009
hello can anyone help just rebuilt an old HP pivilion ze4800.
when i boot up get the error
PXE-E61 : Medai tast failure , check cable
PXE-M0F : Existing intel PXE ROM
also when i go into bois cant detect my hard drive
pls some one help thx
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From: Tim on 08/12/2009
This problem is likely to do with the hard drive not being available to boot off, and the bios looking to the network.

I opened up the laptop to get to the hard drive (This wansnt a slot style) and found the hard drive was loose. Once I re-seated it and rebooted, it worked fine

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From: Anas on 08/12/2009
it worked for me too :D

Thanks Stan
----------------------------------------
From: Stan on 08/03/2009
I had the same problem after reinstalling Windows XP and it was driving me nuts. After stumbling across this discussion and seeing people mentioning boot order... I was ablt to fix it by doing a restore defaults in the bios and then doing Shift + 1 (disable) on the FDD (last thing in the list) in the boot order section. Very strange, but it worked.

louis@empowernetrating.net

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From: Louis on 08/11/2009
Thank you very much stan!!! this worked for me. i would recommend people using this option first before trying the wack theory. i wacked my laptop being frustrated with its speed. i killed my HDD in the process.

From: Stan on 08/03/2009
I had the same problem after reinstalling Windows XP and it was driving me nuts. After stumbling across this discussion and seeing people mentioning boot order... I was ablt to fix it by doing a restore defaults in the bios and then doing Shift + 1 (disable) on the FDD (last thing in the list) in the boot order section. Very strange, but it worked.

louis@empowernetrating.net

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From: Joe on 08/06/2009
Bout the PXS problem....

Umm, well, the whacking worked- nothing esle did- I think it has something to do with the seating of the hard drive - its not overheating - i left it off for over an hour with no battery and no CMOS battery- didn't solve the problem - followed the "Instructions on Beating Your Laptop into Submission" and it worked - get good and upset first- you really have to whack it. It has to know that you mean business!

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From: Thurble on 08/05/2009
I work in a computer shop in Norwich,UK. A customer presented an Acer with this PXE problem today - there was a message about the cable, etc. I couldn't get into the BIOS to check the boot order on the laptop as it was password protected and the guy didn't know it. It being an ageing Acer, it seemed worth trying what had worked for several others in this thread -- so with the customer's permission(!) I whacked the PC pretty hard on the bottom several times, attempting to avoid the hard drive area. Hey presto! It booted the next time with no problem. Thanks for the suggestion, guys!
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From: SImeon on 08/04/2009

____________________________________________________________________

I try to change The QUICK boot in BIOS whit FULL boot and it WORKS

____________________________________________________________________

and disable the network boot , put ONLY CD boot

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From: Stan on 08/03/2009
I had the same problem after reinstalling Windows XP and it was driving me nuts. After stumbling across this discussion and seeing people mentioning boot order... I was ablt to fix it by doing a restore defaults in the bios and then doing Shift + 1 (disable) on the FDD (last thing in the list) in the boot order section. Very strange, but it worked.
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From: Skipper on 07/31/2009
7/31/09

I was getting the PXE61 error trying to load windows xp on a new HDD; after reading the posts I went and disabled all boot devices but the CDROM and viola! No more pxe message and I was able to continue with my setup.

Thanks all for the many suggestions and solution.

Resting in Christ, ><>

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From: Mazhar on 07/22/2009
Sir,

When i start my pc & boot pc to bootable cd so display come PXE-E61 media test failure,check cable..
Pls give me solution to this point.

mazhar_ind@rediffmail.com

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From: martyn on 07/21/2009
when i start my computer up it comes up with : for realtek rtl8139(x)/8130/810x pci fast ethernet controller v2.16 (041224) pxe-e61:media test failure,check cable pxe-mof:exiting pxe rom.

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

i have windows xp home edition and my computer is a packard bell if any one have any info please contact me on prats-@hotmail.com thanks alot

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From: Jason Rathbun Sr. on 07/21/2009
Ok this is probably the weirdest thing i have encountered. I came up with this error code after taking apart an HP Pavilion to fix the power. I DID try other things like re-seating the HD, tearing the entire pc down to the motherboard NUMEROUS TIMES. Looking for the dang cable that was not connected. I thought maybe i was missing something, but knew i was not.......i left the laptop aside for a few months then found this post and lemme tell you, sometimes the most unconventional aspects of life are the ones that work. Even if i can't explain this (which drives me crazy), but i WHACKED it with the lid down on the leftside (if your facing the laptop like you would use it), then i flipped it towards me and WHACKED the bottom (3 times), and VOILA works perfectly fine.......wish i had found this post a few months ago so i wasnt hearing my kids go, "Dad have you fixed our laptop yet...huh huh huh huh ........as an IT i cannot explain this and quite frankly will not try....SOMETHINGS ARE JUST MEANT TO BE WEEEEEIIIRRRD......CAIO'
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From: Eddie on 07/05/2009
Hello I am a begginer in computers. I want to fix this issue for a Acer-Aspire laptop am getting the following message:

Media Test failure, check cable.
Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM.

I already tried one of the possible solutions which is disconnecting the hard drive and the memory and this did not fix it. Also another thing to take in consideration is the fact that this computer sometimes boots properly takes me to the password screen, I enter the password go into the OS and then mabye after a few minutes i'll shut down and then once I try to restart I will the above message mdia test failure, and Exting BroadcomPXEROM.........can someone give me a possible solution, again am not an expert yet so please give me simple instructions.

Ed

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From: Rob on 06/28/2009
OK I read most of these posts. I had the same issue for the past week. I tried ALL OF THE ABOVE including a good whack to the back of the laptop. I wasn't sure how hard to whack it so it failed at first. Then today after another hour of messing around with it I got mad and gave it 2 good hand whacks, one on the left side back and one on the right side back, bang bang pretty hard with my hand, more out of frustration then anything else.........WHAAAALAAAAAAAA all fixed!

What up with that!!!! UNREAL! So good luck all, Momma always said a good spanking never hurt nothin'! LOL She was RIGHT and so is everone else here!

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From: Peter on 06/28/2009
To Solve I removed my internal HD and replaced. Re-seating it solved the problem. Hopefully this is 1-time thing.
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From: perez on 06/27/2009
I have exactly the same problem.

The boot order is HDD>CD-ROM>FDD>LAN. When i disable LAN i get error message as "Insert system disk in drive..." "Press any key when ready...".
And am sure the disk is in and am now thinking of trying another disk as that is the option i have not done so far.

Please help!!!!!!!

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From: Sridhar on 06/26/2009
Hello Sir

I am having a problem when i start my pc this error was appeared "PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable. PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE ROM., DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

Please give solution

Thank you

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From: n3xuz on 06/24/2009
started my windows in safe mode with ms-dos....(pressing F8 during boot repeatedly gets you in that menu) and after that in ms-dos mode went from c:/ to d:/ or where your disk drive is and then c:/dir and found a file called wubi.exe type wubi.exe and install with windows!!! after that tou may delete windows.....simple....
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From: John on 06/23/2009
This was easy fixed for me i am runing windows vista all i had to do was go into my BIOS and pressed "load defalts" this got me to the boot screen where i used windows vista in safe mode and restarted my computer =D
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From: Gary on 06/18/2009
I was getting the media system error and system boot disk error. This system is about 1 year old and has regular scans using Zone Alarm and Spybot. After reading other posts, I disconnected my C and D drive cables from the drive and re installed them. Also, I disconnected the drive cables from the mother board and re installed. Lastly, I took all the memory sticks (3, 512) out and reinstalled them. I booted my my computer and it fixed both problems. Obviously a bad connection on both parts. Works great and I was back up in running in 15 minutes.
Thanks, guys.
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From: Andrew on 06/15/2009
Laptop packed in with the above error message. Tried the ctl/alt delete, F10, battery, hard disc tighten etc and no joy. Got annoyed, bashed the thing a few times and now works perfectly.

Last resort solution before expensive repairs?

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From: kamal on 06/06/2009
i get a bad message on my computar, nothing get well now, i think that i loosed all folders, pictures, work... all..
so sad and lost , and i don't know what i can do .
the message is :

for realtek RTL8100E/8101E fast ethernet netwprk adapter V1.02 (060510)
PXE-E61 : Media test falure, check cable
PXE-M0F : Exiting PXE ROM.

please give an answear and resume me the solution.
plz
thankx
bobka262@hotmail.com

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From: Nick on 06/05/2009
Try re-seating your hardrive. It seemed to work for me.
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From: Eric_Dubai on 06/05/2009
Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
Copyright (C) 1997, 1998, 1999 Intel Corporation
VIA PCI 10/100Mb Fast Ethernet Adapter
PXE-E61: Media test failure,check cable
PXE-M0F: Existing Intel PXE ROM
Operating System not found

I received the msg above after i insert a new battery in my HP omnibook XE4100. i re-start the system then press F2 to enter setup it ask for the password. The boot priority:

1-Removable Dev.
2-CD-ROM
3-Hard Drive
4-IBA 4.0.19 Slot 0208

I tried that ESC, CTRL, ALT & DEL for several times and the message disappear and everything went ok. Then i test it again, i re-started the system the message appeared again. For now i just remove the new battery and plug the power cord directly.Please advice how can I fix the problem. Thanks in advance.


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From: Bri on 06/03/2009
I thought it was mad but I tried the Esc, then CTRL+ALT+Del and the PXE-E61 media test problem disappeared after being there for about 20 re-boots. Quite bizarre. Didn't install new HD or OS or anything! Good luck guys...it worked for me!
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From: Liam on 05/28/2009
I'm having a similar problem. laptop was working fine before but it suddenly wont start up.

when i try to boot it says:
PXE-E61: media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: exiting broadcom PXE ROM.
Operating system not found

i have proved there is no problem with the boot device priority.

what can i do? maybe ive knocked it and the cable to the hard drive has knocked out of place or something? i dont have any reboot cds or anything.

any help or ideas is greatly appreciated, thanks

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From: nayab on 05/25/2009
sir ihave media test failure,check cable
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From: WebAddict on 05/23/2009
This absolutely save me from tearing my friends older Acer laptop apart today. I've been trying to boot from the CD 5000 different ways and nothing worked until this.

The first issue was "ntdlr is missing" but it wouldn't boot from the windows disk because of a second error "pxe-e61:media test failure check cable" dealing with the CD/DVD drive I guess.

Thanks so much to Kevin who posted this below:
"I thought this was a crazy idea, but I tried it. It worked

From: The best on 08/27/2008
FOR your problems :
hold on ESC , after ctrl Alt del follow this steps for a few times , for me it works , I hope to work for u so .
ps : for PXE E61 errors "

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From: ray on 05/21/2009
recieved this error message, after trying many suggestions it dawned on my to run a HD test.....FAIL!!! new HD, a reload, and everything is fine =)
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From: crazygreek29 on 05/19/2009
my first problem was system kept rebooting. So because I love to mess with things I took out everything and when I put it all back in. realtek blah blah
I had the pxe-e61
pxe-mof?
invalid partition
so I tinkered a lil and found out that I switch out my cmos battier
with a bad one so I switched back and tada it work but, Iwas not finished in xp hit f2 and that takes you to the bios setting use the arrow and go to advanced Bios settings and it shuld read like this boot 1 cd-rom boot 2 hdd boot 3 removable boot 4 disabled and that should corrected the problem exit and save tada done

Now I'm back to the system restarts continuous any one can help me on this problem please would be greatly appreciate

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From: Young on 05/16/2009
Toshiba Tecra A2

Problem
- change boot order to be CD-ROM first
- insert the Toshiba Notebook Recovery CD
- looks OK, the message asks to delete everything on HDD, say yes
- it runs on first CD a little while, and comes up with DOS style error message something like, No drive T: found, and show options to
Abort, Retry, Failed. I choose "Abort", the process asks to insert disk2, I did, then frozen and reboot and come up with pxe-e61:media test failure check cable

Resolution
- reboot machine, ESC and F1 to go in to BIOS setup, disable LAN on the laptop.
- take out battery, and put it in, turn on machine again, this time, the problem solve.

I think the cause was beacuse it tried to access network drive (on T:) and it remembers that value until the battery has taken out. Take me an hour to figure this out. Thanks a lot for this thread for giving me this idea.

Good luck

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From: xxwwxxwwxx on 05/13/2009
I have a similar problem im working on now. Same media check cable thing, but in my case there is no hard drive in laptop. It wont boot to cd rom no matter what the setting and there is no option to remove boot to lan. The problem is the intergrated argon pxe boot agent. I even tried two other cd roms and same problem. In my case a thought came to me about a device i just bought off ebay...a ide/sata adapter, witch allows you to hook any internal device..cdroms, harddrives etc to usb. So ill try hooking a internal ide cd rom to usb and try to boot to a live cd, if that works I'll try installing xp through the external cd rom. Just a thought!
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From: ZiaAus3000 on 05/11/2009
Hi everyone, I faced the same problem when I purchased an acer used P4 desktop today. Tested at seller's place and started without a problem. Brought home and fired it up - no problem. Then came the problem when I conneceted the ethernet cable and rebooted. Used all the troubleshooting methods but not fruitful. Finally came in my mind to see the boot sequence and guess what, first boot device was CDROM, second was LAN and third was HDD. Found the cause, changed the second to HDD and third to Floppy and no more LAN booting. Fired up again with ethernet cable and problem resolved. Cheers
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From: dhiraj on 05/08/2009
To solve this problem :

"PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, System won't boot"

1.Go to Bios Settings
2.Remove LAN booting from booting options...For laptop ,type "X" on the LAN booting option.
3.Save The configuration(F10)
This Will Solve this problem


But my problem was little different .System was not able to detect the CD/DVD in my Drive while booting
And my "HardDisk" vista had got corrupted

So finally i got hold of 1 USB DVD drive,booted and installed Vista on my machine


Then later i found out that ,CD/DVD drive reads for Non-bootable CD/DVD
but for bootable CD/DVD ,my system although detects CD/DVD but is unable to read them .

Question to any one here:

Can anyone tell me why Bootable CD/DVD are not being read in my system [The bus is alright and i can detect the CD/DVD drive but cant read on booting ]

but with vista/XP image in my harddisk i can read games/music CD/DVD i n my system

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From: Hands on 05/07/2009
If a clean wipe and new windows install is your idea of a solution, have fun. That fixes everything! So does buying a new computer every year.
You didn't solve anything, it WILL do it again. Your computer originally came with a clean install and you had a problem anyway.
The PXE check cable error is a boot problem and since you didn't find the actual problem, it will come back to haunt you soon. Enjoy.
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From: prod on 05/06/2009
for those having the same problem as me just want to let you know how i solved it and NO it had nothing to do w my CPU or any hardware for that matter. http://www.theeldergeek.com/clean_installation_of_windows_xp.htm
this was my fix hopes it helps you all.
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From: prod on 05/06/2009
well im new at this geez no need to be rude.
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From: Hands on 05/06/2009
Blow the f-ing dust out of the fan, sheesh! Take a shower once and a while too, and wash behind your ears, YUCK!!!! It's called overheating the CPU, my god, can't you people use a little common sense?


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From: prod on 05/05/2009
please help. i have a similar problem. i have a laptop compaq presario v2000 when i start it up it gives me pxe-e61: media test failure, check cable and also a PXE-M0F Exiting PXE ROM message. i have tried to reinstall OS but 1 min into installation is automatically shuts down on its own. If i try to load from hard drive I get the error message. I have tried change the boot sequence, disabling booting devices and also replacin the HD and nothing seems to work. I see the HD in the BIOS so i know its being recognized. please help.
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From: Ashutosh Sharma on 05/02/2009
I also had this problem on my Dell Studio 15 and it was due to Boot order:
network
usb
hard disk
cd/dvd rom drive

it was trying to find out whether it can boot from network and failed in terms of cable. The moment i corrected this order the problem got fixed.

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From: Ozzy on 04/28/2009
pxe-e61:media test failure check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel Reboot
Thought id give you my input as i too had the same problem, i was fustrated tried a viriety of user inputs. I was ready to send it to the shop but before that i took the initiative and pulled the hard drive out and intalled it back as a result my laptop started on its on deleting and recovering files at the end i had 29 unindexed files that were recovered. So i have no idea what could have cuased the hard drive shift or not make contact with the ports.
Hope this helps "Wizard Of Oz"
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From: dhiraj on 04/23/2009
Can someone solve my problem

I have excluded n/w from boot order
i only boot with cd and hard disk

hard disk booting is working

but in case of cd/dvd ,its giving "No operating System Found"

CD is working fine of other system

i need to install a new OS on my system

Waiting for a fruitful reply :)

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From: Khan3000 on 04/22/2009
Hi everyone, I faced the same problem when I purchased an acer used P4 desktop today. Tested at seller's place and started without a problem. Brought home and fired it up - no problem. Then came the problem when I conneceted the ethernet cable and rebooted. Used all the troubleshooting methods but not fruitful. Finally came in my mind to see the boot sequence and guess what, first boot device was CDROM, second was LAN and third was HDD. Found the cause, changed the second to HDD and third to Floppy and no more LAN booting. Fired up again with ethernet cable and problem resolved. Cheers
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From: Dhiraj on 04/21/2009
hi ,

i am facing a similar problem on my lenovo laptop

My Vista got corrupted due to some problem with one of its drivers
i am not able to do safe booting as one of the driver crashes

while i try to do normal booting,it boots and restarts on finding a driver failure just before logon(corrupt winlogon.exe)

hence i tried to re-install /Repair Vista

i got the same error
:PXE-E61 Media Test Failure, System won't boot

Then i removed Network and harddisk from Booting options in BIOS settings

and Now once i try to boot from cd/dvd
it gives :"Operating System Not Found"

The CD is fine as it is able to boot on a different machine


Can someone help me with this problem?

I am able to detect the CD Option from Bios,which implies that there should be no problem with Bus connecting to CD Drive

is it a loose cable problem?

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From: myLocalPCpro.com on 03/31/2009
pull out your powerplug, pop your battery, pull the jumper on your cmos, place it on the first two pins, give it a few moments,put the jump back on the original pin, re-insert battery, power plug in, push button. And you will be back in business.
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From: bruno balogh on 03/23/2009
hi,
I am kind a fixing laptops and sometimes figure it out what is wrong with it.
I have a toshiba a75 laptop and had the same issue as above.
I have done anything I can do but no good result.
Until I have read about static charge and other stuff. My idea was probably an old way...taking out the cmos battery. It was soldered but not a big deal, and what happened next? My laptop accepted boot device and willing to boot from HDD...also no more error message.
As advise to you..take the cmos out and might help. :)
Bruno
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From: mark on 03/17/2009
similar problem... have an older vaio & did a full wipe of the hdd, but now I can't install windows back on it. "cannot detect operating system". I turned off PNP, tried bios defaults. My newer vaio recovery disk works with it & that is how I was able to wipe the disk. However, that is a vista recovery. anyways, the cdrom reads, obviously, but I can't get my other recovery disk to read or any other windows disk to read. Either "pxe" error shows up or "no operating system detected"
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From: Roy on 03/17/2009
I have a similer problem with My TOSHIBA TECRA A4 laptop MODEL number PTA40E -016011BT.When i start the Machin it starts to boot then stops.the informations i get are as follows

-PXE-E61:media test Failre.

-pxe-mof:Exiting PXE ROM.

-Invalid Media type reading Drive C.

if there is any one to help directly : royallen30@yahoo.com

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From: usapaul on 03/13/2009
in order to load the Operating system I request you to disable the SATA Native Mode in BIOS and then load the Operating system.

1. Please perform the below steps for the same:

a. Restart your computer.
b. When the F10 setup message appears in the lower left corner of the screen, press the F10 key.
c. Locate ‘System Configuration’ and then select ‘Device Configurations’.
d. Under ‘Device Configurations’, select ‘SATA Native Mode’ and disable the same.
e. Save the settings and exit.

Once the SATA Mode is disabled, please install the Operating System in the normal fashion using the Recovery CDs or the Operating System CDs that you have. Before installing the same, you need have the SATA Controller driver. Please follow the ’Installation Instructions’ in the SATA controller driver link given below.

2. Download the latest “Intel SATA AHCI Controller Driver” driver from the below mentioned link:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId
=321957&prodSeriesId=3356620&prodNameId=3356622&swEnvOID=1093&swLang=13&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=ob-54270-1

Upon installing the same, please get back into the BIOS and enable the SATA Native Mode.

Note: The third-party information provided is to help you find the support you need. This information is subject to change without notice. HP in no way guarantees the accuracy of this third-party information. The software manufacturer will provide support for this software.
Please update your observation for us to serve you better.

I have also given you the link below for the XP Professional Drivers:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId
=3356622&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=3356620&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=1093

The above given information are pertaining to HP 6710b Notebook PC. If you do not have the same, please update the serial number for us to given you more information.

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From: Tom on 03/10/2009
HI
everyone i had same problem i solved it throught the step of removing the battery from the laptop but had my laptop configured to boot from laptop in bios, it pick up dhcp in few seconds

thanks

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From: Jeremy on 03/06/2009
I was replacing factory hd with an wd 250gb internal (that came with no disk)and when I was trying to install os, got a message that there was no hd found.

Resolution-took out Interanal and realized that I had forgotten to take the adapter off old Internal .....Put on new internal and tried installing os again and ...whooooola it worked -----may be just a bad connection on hd.(what a dumb*ss). hope this works for you

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From: marc on 03/04/2009
ok i to am having some major poblem with the
PXE-E61 and PXE-MOF errors

i have tryed many of the listed solutions but their not working, i can get the the option screen (F8) and select all the options but then it hangs while loading windows so im guessing the hard drive in broken and ive not had any ram changed, ive reset the bios to the Factory settings and its still not having any joy any ideas?

email me with any help thanks marc mj@chaoticme.co.uk

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From: Rick on 02/21/2009
I just got my PC back from dell and it was repaired and as soon as i booted it up the first thing I see is "pxe-e61:media test failure check cable". So after looking at hundreds of posts about this problem. I went into my bios and and checked every setting . I found things that did not seem right. first thing was boot order my hard drive was not first, and in my boot order was a 3.5 drive which my laptop does not have,I disabled that. also i found that my lan settings was off,I reset that.I did see that my system setting for docking was set to on I dont use a docking system so i turned that off, and my internal modem was set to off I turned that on. I rebooted and the problem was gone.I think if you take your time and check your Bios settings and right down what settings you changed you can solve this problem.
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From: James on 02/10/2009
Simple solution for me. The buggers at pcspecialist didn't put in the two screws that bolt my solid state drive in place. The only thing holding it in place was the connection which meant that a knock to the right hand side of the laptop would cause it to slide out of it's connector.

The quickest way to check this is to open up your boot menu (on my laptop you hit F12 on boot up). If your hard drive is missing from the list of items then could have slipped out of it's connector.

Unscrew the pannel for your hard drive on the back of your laptop and re-connect it...im my case, find 2 screws and screw the damn thing in place.

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From: venezian on 01/29/2009
I just went through this problem with a Lenovo M57.

Check the RAM. i had installed a kingston 2GB module and that was the problem.
after removing it, all the errors went away. I was able to reboot and load my image.
just for kicks i put the memory back in to see what happens and BOOM, computer is dead again.

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From: albi on 01/29/2009
Simple one to fix. Take out hard drive (forget any jumpers), take out laptop battery and cmos battery, wait 10 mins. fit everything back, restore bios settings and time and install yr operating system. This should sort yr problems out. Operating system on hardrive should behave.
email albitronic@btinternet.com
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From: Dave on 01/26/2009
Please Help...

Have an acer laptop with this error but cant enter bios to change boot setup. switych laptop on and it used to have a load bar along the bottom and it said 'press f2 to enter setup. now though i just get the the load bar and then the screen blanks into dos where i get the error message. I can press f2 f8 or any button as long as i want but it makes absolutley no difference. Have tried booting with recovery discs in but the screen goes blank after the load bar - i dont get the error message though but it just stays blank. Any ideas??

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From: sonic313 on 01/26/2009
I encountered this problem a few times. The first time I just rebooted my laptop for a couple times and went back to normal. I encountered it again when I brought my laptop to my house closer to work. I checked the BIOS and it could not detect the hard drive. i read in one of the posts here to bang it a little bit. tried and its working again. now I'm afraid to move it. I'll just have to open it up and check if the hard drive is loose or something.
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From: Ritentinsh on 01/21/2009
Just disable Boot agent from BIOS Boot list. This worked out for me. Other boots works excelent - no troubles.
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From: rod on 01/14/2009
The comment on Simon on 09/26/2008 was just what i needed. I was trying to boot from CD but it turned out the CD in the drive was bad. replacing it with another bootable CD worked. thanks and good luck to others!
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From: cyberzone on 01/14/2009
my email address is cyberzoneinternetworld@yahoo.com if any know how fix this problems pxe-e61
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From: cyberzone on 01/14/2009
my laptop show pxe-e61 how can I fix this cyberzoneinternetworld@yahoo.com
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From: walter on 01/14/2009
how can I fix pxe-e61 it keeps showing
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From: Nemo on 01/13/2009
I had the same PXE-E61 failure.

Try to boot up with a Boot CD from win XP. You'll probably get access to your hd by the end of the process.

If that doesn't work you might (I do not recomend unless you're a pro) just install the hd in another machine and format it. Then re-install whatever OS you like, partitioning the hd.

Cheers and good luck.

Ps. Every time I boot up the message PXE-E61 failure still appears, but the machine is working just fine.

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From: Ermin on 01/11/2009
hello , i am getting this report

PXE - E61 : media test failure, check cable PXE - MOF : Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM

and i have a dell computer
but i took a test that says hardware and everything elas is fine but the problem is that this keeps comeing up

can anyone help me?

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From: alien on 01/10/2009
i had the same error so i went to bios aswell there seems to be programs that should be enabled that are not
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From: napi86 on 12/23/2008
hi all.. i also having this problem.. i solve it using ubuntu 8.10 livecd.. i used acer aspire 4720. it seem problem because it cant recognize the boot hdd.. so run the laptop using the livecd.. try ubuntu without installing.. after it run.. go to setting>partion manager.. select the drive c. change flag. tick the /boot. and save and try restart.. hope it help u as it help me..
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From: Cody on 12/16/2008
Hello,

I have used to have the same error. I just disabled Broadcom PXE (my wireless adapter) in the boot list in setup, haven't seen it since.. Actually, I disabled everything except the hard drive. What is the point in having the usb adapter, cd-rom (unless you are booting from cd), wireless adapter, et al, boot whenever it is booted in the os anyways?

Maybe this doesn't apply to all, but I thought id share my two cents.

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From: Classified on 12/16/2008
For all of you that are havin problem wit media test type failre, there's a website posted to help deal wit this kind of problem. I have typed in Google media test type failure, and I have gotten two websites with some good explaination to this problem. Here's the two website I have run across www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000706.htm and www.nocrash.com/ncbbs/msgs/3247.shtml. They explain the issue as having to be a problem wit incorrect Bios configuration or a bad hard drive. I'm thinkin this could also be triggerd by incorrect configuration of the jumper. Meaning, the CD-ROM nor the Hard Drive isn't setup. I somehow, found that if u select both to Cable Select on seperate ide cable. It won't trigger this msg. But if you're runnin' it off a single cable. The first have to be set to Master while the last one set to Cable Select.
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From: IScrewedUp!!! on 12/16/2008
Before you blow away Windows, make sure you try as many of the solutions on this page as you can.

I got impatient and tried right away to reinstall Windows.

After looking through the solutions offered a bit more, I decided to go into BIOS and look at the boot options again. This time I expanded hard drives and noticed a "!" next to the HDD listed. After enabling the HDD, it worked fine.


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From: Sri on 12/06/2008
I have Compaq Presario V5000 (bought 2 years back). I am getting this PXE-E61: Media test failure check cable error. I encountered this error 2 times today when I was watching a video song in YouTube. I am able to boot the system without any issue. Although, I noticed considerable change in my battery.. it has detoriated in past few weeks, without AC adapter it works for 10-15 minutes only. Please advice if this issue (not a booting issue) is due to battery?? And what should i do????
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From: Simion on 11/30/2008
I turned on my laptop this evening Inspiron 1501 and it was giving me the same problem. I went to bios and changed the order for booting but it still did not work. I tried to boot from the installation CD and it stated that there is no C drive. So i decided to open the laptop and see what is wrong with the HD. I took the battery out for 1 min and then set it back. When i turned the laptop, it was working. It is possible there was a problem in the interrupts with the power supply. Try for yourselves, at least it's the cheapest method.
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From: Wil on 11/22/2008
Hey, i was also having this problem. I however was having another problem at the same time. It would give me this error (pxe-e61), but if i had the xp disk in i could get past it to the setup loading screen when it would give me the blue screen of death error 0x0000007B. (You can read all about these kinds of errors and possible solutions here: http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Windows-XP-Blue-Screen-Death-STOP-Codes-t43519.html)

I solved the problem (for me anyway): I was using a pci card with IDE ports to connect my cd drives (x2). My HD's (x2) connect directly to the IDE port on the motherboard. It was working fine, bios saw the cd drives and the xp cd ran. While long story short the pci card was the problem, so i could not use it which limited me to two things being connected by IDE during the XP install (so one cd drive and one HD were not connected just for the install)

I realize that this doesnt help if your not using one of these PCI cards, but i hope for your sake you are.... Good Luck!

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From: Siva on 11/18/2008
I followed the advice from one of the posts, and it worked. The original post was as below:

From: Amen on 09/17/2008
I got a toshiba satellite with the problem "Media failure check cable" I restarted my computer and pressed f2 once I was in the bios, then I pressed f9 to set up default settings in the bios and saved it. It worked just fine after this.
buena suerte

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From: Juda$ on 11/13/2008
Sam error on my ASUS A6Jc...nothing work, but at last I switch jumper on hardisc to master and it seems to work ...I hope
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From: Superman on 11/10/2008
I had the same problem. I just put on my windows xp installer and re-installed everything. In less than 1 hour I got my laptop back. It works like Magic!
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From: Ben on 11/05/2008
I came across the same error on my laptop. I'd dropped it in the airport, short fall and it worked fine for two days. Then I put Windows (Vista) into hibernate, and when I brought it back out of hibernate it was frozen, so I manually rebooted it and started see this same PXE error:
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
Boot Failure: System Halted

I ended up on here. The problem appear to be a corrupted boot sector, I downloaded a copy of Knoppix (http://www.knoppix.net/) to inspect the HDD contents, and sure enough the disks are still there and readable, but they're just not bootable. Tonight i'm gonna repair the boot sectors and hopefully that will clear this whole mess up. Just thought i'd post to let people know you can validate if your hard drive is working by booting from a knoppix cd and then mounting the HDD to view the files.

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From: Estam on 11/01/2008
Short answer.
Check in BIOS rom for start up sequence and check if there is an asterist (!) in front of the hdd. If there is, it’s disabled. Select the hdd and press shift key plus “1&#8243; This removes the ! and you can then use the hdd to re-format or….
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From: Abhinash on 10/26/2008
hi all.
i really need your help.
my wife just dropped her laptop in an angry fit.
now it says pxe-e61 error everytime i switched it on.
although the hdd is there with windows installed, it just cant find the hdd.
any help would me much appreciated.
thanks
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From: Chris on 10/25/2008
Hey guys, im having this same problem except when i go to the boot priority it only picks up the network card,CD/DVD drive and the flopy disk, i kno the drive works because i plugged it into annother machine and i can access/read+write to it, ive changed the sata cable, different sata port, used the CD/DVD's power cable and still no luck... anyone able to help?
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From: Anthony on 10/23/2008
I recieved the same error and went about changing my boot order, removing my battery, switching battery packs. Finally, i noticed that the screw holding my hard drive in place was missing and the slide handle slightly ajar. apparantly on the IBM R52 model, the hard drive protection system is very robust, and would not read my hard drive from a position which was slightly off center.
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From: Kevin on 10/09/2008
I thought this was a crazy idea, but I tried it. It worked

From: The best on 08/27/2008
FOR your problems :
hold on ESC , after ctrl Alt del follow this steps for a few times , for me it works , I hope to work for u so .
ps : for PXE E61 errors

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From: Ant on 10/02/2008
This is a generic problem. When you get this error, it can be caused by any part of the PC hardware failing, so what fixes one PC, won't neccessarily fix yours. In my case, removing the battery pack sorted it out (laptop)

Ant.

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From: bella on 09/29/2008
the problem i am having now is i cant get even into bios from F2..

my first screen says secondary ide channel no 80 conductor cable installed

floppy disk fail (40)

***i dont even have a floppy drive)****

then press F1 to continue or del to enter setup.. and well setup doesnt get me to bios.. just to a few things and the advanced bios, but nothing anyone has talked about on here.. or anything that comes close to what someone has tried on here to try in this setup area.

so if i go to continue i get


"verifying DMI pool data....

boot from cd:


nvidia boot agent, pxe 2.0 (build 082 v1.82)

pxe-e61: media test failure, check cable

pxe-m0f: exiting nvidia boot agent

disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter.

i have unplugged everything and plugged it back in and still nothing.. anyone know what to do haha

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From: Ron on 09/28/2008
Sometimes I would pick up the comp and get the blue screen - then got the pxe-e61 error and would not go away even after changing the boot order several times....BUT

Amazing - I just turned my HP Pavillion over and tightened a few loose screws and it worked! Make sure you do this first - make sure HD is set in place and screws tight before buying anything! Problem is most likely just a loose component....hopefully....good luck

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From: Michael on 09/28/2008
I used a Hiren Bootcd to run Norton Disc Doctor on my computer that was doing the exact same thing. At first I went through all the stuff with the recovery disc, this:

* C: CD ..
* C: ATTRIB -H C:\\boot.ini
* C:ATTRIB -S C:\\boot.ini
* C:ATRIB -R C:\\boot.ini
* C: del boot.ini
* C: BOOTCFG /Rebuild
* C: CHKDSK /R /F
* C: FIXBOOT


It was still stuck. So I used Norton Disc Doctor, which told me I had no partition. It asked if I wanted to fix it, I said yeah, and bam, it was fixed.

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From: Simon on 09/26/2008
The reason for the error message is that all other bootable options are not working.

Your computer is unable to boot from your hard drive, and unable to boot from your CD, and unable to boot from any other sources. So now it is trying to boot from the network. This error message means that you do not have a network cable plugged into your computer. Therefore it is failing to boot from the network as well.

This means that either your hard drive has crashed, so your computer can't find it. Or you are using a bogus boot CD, that the computer can't read.

Get yourself a new hard drive and a legit boot CD and you'll be fine.

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From: za on 09/23/2008
have u ever considered
changing the boot order priority
to
cdrom
hdd
etc..
and reinstalling a fresh copy of windows?

+sha za labs+

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From: David on 09/23/2008
Enter Setup go advanced BIOS features go to boot device enter hdd fisrt cd second and floppy third if you have one.
In try other boot devices select NO.
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From: Raja Nagendra Kumar on 09/17/2008
Yep.. in my case it was disk not having O.S.. observe Boot failure ... Once I installed CD rom with boot disk things booted well.

Hope Intel would have done better messaging with boot failure.. as it was in previous releases..

Not sure how in the year 2008 release DG31PR board has such bios..

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From: Amen on 09/17/2008
I got a toshiba satellite with the problem "Media failure check cable" I restarted my computer and pressed f2 once I was in the bios, then I pressed f9 to set up default settings in the bios and saved it. It worked just fine after this.

buena suerte

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From: Davorin on 09/10/2008
I read a post here (can't find it now) that suggested removing the battery and putting it back in.

I did this and it solved my PXE-E61 error; the system now boots normally. It was very simple, thank you and good luck.

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From: Ben on 09/02/2008
I was working on my computer (eMachines MX4624 notebook) last nite and chut down my comp, the next morning i wake and turn on the computer and nothing happened...
I had the network cable in to my xbox hoping to swap some files and maybe it tried booting from that? idk
anyway and then it came up with:
Broadcom 2000-2004
Intel 1997-2000
PXE-E61 & MOF errors

I took turned the comp off, unplugged it, took out the battery, removed my 160GB hdd replaced it, removed my 1GB RAM replaced it, and turned it on and same thing, or nothing happened.

then i again removed everything, shook the comp a wee bit, undid some other screws had a look in side, jiggled it some more, replaced everything, put in my old 40GB hdd and wow it worked!!!! it's a bloody miracle!
so of course i'm thinking, it's fixed and swap hdd's and now it doesn't want to work... so i swap the hdds again and WOW!!! it's working!

so it works with the 40GB and not with the 160GB??? beats me!
any ideas?

i'm thinking of taking it to a computer technician and getting the data from it onto another hdd. as well as asking them if there is a fault with the hdd, if there is and i can find my receipt i should get some money back!

first time this has happened and it's taken me to another level of frustration, i was actually about to take someones advice on another thread i read and literally smash it with a hammer or throw it off a cliff!

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From: JoJo on 08/30/2008
I bought a brand new Intel based server with 5000SPL board. I am too getting this PXE-61 error twice and then only does it boot up to Win 2003. Could it simply be boot order. I doubt it, because the boor order is DVD drive then HDD. It gives this error message irrespective of the bootable disk in the drive AND Win 2003 is installed and it detects the HDD correctly.

I will however see in the BIOS if network boot can be disabled.

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From: Cassidy on 08/28/2008
I am having the same problem with my laptop.

I will try resetting the boot order in the BIOS, as explained below.

However, my other concern is that my hard drive is also making an audible noise when trying to boot. I think there may be some physical damage, could this also cause the error and am I totally screwed?

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From: The best on 08/27/2008
FOR your problems :
hold on ESC , after ctrl Alt del follow this steps for a few times , for me it works , I hope to work for u so .
ps : for PXE E61 errors
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From: laptop speacialist on 08/27/2008
i seen every day dis fault in hp,acer ,and toshiba . it is not a bois fault and not also hard drive problem....
this problem with motherborad problem.insdia a chipset on motherborad .must resold it i hop this problem will solve
takecare. and must try it with preheat and laser.
ajnabie2001@yahoo.com
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From: Tyler on 08/18/2008
i recieved the message "pxe-e61 media test failure, check cable. pxe-m0f exiting intel boot agent"

what am i supposed to do?
i have tried everything.
my boot sequence is
1. hard drive
2. cd rom
3. floppy drive
4. nic

also in the boot sequence it says the hard drive and cd rom drive are not installed.

please help. you can email me at tsel26@aol.com if you want.

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From: Peter on 08/18/2008

I was getting this error on my Toshiba Satelite P205 -s6237

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exciting PXE ROM'

couldn't find the Harddisk listed in the boot menu
What I DID
Just went into the bios via F2 Key,Went to Boot Menu
and enabled the HDD with Shift + 1 Key.
Saved changes and rebooted. IT WORKED! PRAISE THE LORD!

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From: Yesman on 08/11/2008
If the windows partition is still there, gparted should show that but you probably need to set up grub (the boot loader) to boot your windows partition and maybe the linux one too. You really shouldn't be getting the pxe-e61 error unless it can't boot anything, which a ubuntu install shouldn't do to you unless it didn't finish all the way.
Just read up on how to set up boot and grub so it does dual boot etc.. or see if there's a way to let ubuntu install finish (google).
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From: steve on 08/07/2008
i tried installing ubuntu and stupid me check entire disk, now i get the pxe-61 error when trying to boot my windows vista.

any way of undoing this? is gparted the right direction? any help and suggestions are appreciated

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From: Geoff on 08/07/2008
Has anybody had their laptop restart on them, crash, then start the pxe-e61? It seems to happen when I move the laptop after it has been sitting on for a while. I could be in the middle of typing a message, then the whole system would slow down, then it would restart. I have replaced the harddrive already as well. Does anybody think the 2 are connected, or just 2 sererate problems.
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From: Derrick on 08/04/2008
Hi, I know next to nothing about computers. I get the "pxe-e61:media test failure check cable" message and can select which profile to enter on my laptop. After that my laptop stops loading anything. All i get is the background. I have tried changing the BIOS but can't seem to find the right way to do it. I am not connected to any network.


HDD
CD/DVD
FDD
LAN

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From: Tommy on 08/02/2008
Changing the boot order helped for me.

first HD - Harddrive

second cd-rom

third remote-device

forth diabled floppy-disk

Hope it helps for you other guys.

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From: Dan on 07/31/2008

Hi

I am in nearly same position at my laptop, but when I press switch-on button is off. After 10 times trying laptop is on.
Than on my black screen is repeating PXE-E61 and MOf ...

There is no function to operate, no reaction on any button, just black screen and repeating sbout mistake.

I try CD recovery but is stopped after 10 or 20 sec after start.

Any idea for BIOS connection in my situation ?!

Any help and advice
Please

Dan

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From: Linda on 07/30/2008
Tay, Can you please explain further? I dont know which section in the BIOS setup utility to change; main, advanced, etc.


"I just found that setting in the BIOS, changed it so that the A drive was assigned to my floppy drive and everything worked"

Thanks!

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From: Tay on 07/30/2008
I had a similar problem for a target PC I was using without an OS. It turned out the problem was that my BIOS was miss configured...meaning the A drive was not assigned to the floppy drive I had installed. I just found that setting in the BIOS, changed it so that the A drive was assigned to my floppy drive and everything worked!

Good luck.

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From: RCRSr on 07/29/2008
From: jt on 12/07/2007
I ran into a variation of the PXE-E61 error on my Acer laptop recently and finally figured out what the problem was yesterday. I have an Acer Aspire 5100 laptop. When it crashed, it would not recognize the HDD so it would cycle through boot devices and get stuck on the Realtek device. I used the restore disks that were generated by the machine after purchase. I reformatted the drive and reinstalled WindowsXP MCE - and it did it again. This happened twice with two different hard drives from Acer.
After hooking up the new drive to another machine, I could see that the restore disks were formatting the drive as a FAT32 system with a boot partition the size of the entire drive (~80GB) instead of NTFS. FAT32 cannot handle a boot disk larger than 32GB - it becomes unstable, so I reformatted the drive using a windows XP install disk I keep handy and downloaded the drivers from Acer and now all is fixed.

Hope this helps anyone who needs it.
********************************************************
Referring to the above previous and very old post I have this
I too am getting that awful error PXE-E61/PXE-E53 type errors everyone else is experiencing with their laptops. Our is an ACER Aspire 5100 series; Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 2002; SP2.

I have restored to factory conditions from the D: drive factory install. After install has been completed, I see that the hard drive is a FAT32 file system. I do not have install disk from acer for my machine as I never got one when it was new. Just the Recover Program on drive D.

question:
How can I change the c: drive file system to a NTFS FILE SYSTEM AND REINSTALL the computer factory shipped software including the operating system?

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From: Alan on 07/29/2008
LOL!! i just looked back at the post date, and this topic is 5 years old, haha... i wonder if he ever got it fixed O_O
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From: Alan on 07/29/2008
Well, the PXE-E61 error, is normally caused when network booting, and it can't connect to the network. The media test failure, check cable dialog, is referring to the fact, that it can't find your ethernet cable, or that it can't find the connection with the cable you may have. This error can usually be solved, either by connecting your computer to the network correctly (assuming that a network boot is intended) or changing the BIOS boot setup to boot off the local hard drive.

As far as "PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM." I'm not really sure of, It sounds like its trying to boot from somewhere else, perhaps on an external harddrive or something. And that it can't find that drive, so it exits, thus resulting it the "PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM." error. My guess is that it can't find the boot volume.

You may try resetting the bios, or simply making sure the boot order is set to boot off your local hard drive as first priority. And then to make sure that you have a valid OS installed on that hard drive.

Hope that helped.

~ Alan

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From: Dazmit on 07/26/2008
Yes I have had a similar problem. I get the PXE-E61 media test failure check cable. I ran my restore disks, and windows finally booted, but with the error message at the start. I have read many answers to this problem from many different sites and I think it is basically down to two problems occuring.
1. Bios settings
2. Hard drive failure(could just be a loose connection).

I went into my BIOS(pressing F2) on boot up. I'm running a HP Pavilion ze4300. I simlpy changed the boot sequence to factory default and now the error message has gone away and I have tested my system cold, hot you name it, everything things back to normal. So it can be as simple as changing your boot sequence in the BIOS.

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From: arajadurai on 07/25/2008

25-fr=jul/2008

i too am having above problem of 'Media test failure/ Check cable' on my home PC today..

but for me, I am trying to awake from my hibernate state of my PC.
In my dualboot system with XP and Server2k3, after my installing SP3 to XP, the problem emerged. May be XP booter / service pack would have reconfigured few files regarding booting/sequence to read harddisk/network boot..

My MAJOR question / WORRY is.:
Whether open files mainly JSP/HTML/JAVA/TXT would be corrupt if the computer, for god's sake, opens after troubleshooting properly...

I'll try few options of troublshooting 1] changing boot sequence, 2] disable logfrom network etc. when i go to home...3] Try default BIOS setup...4] lastly, go for hardisk cabling, tighten its position.. then will revert...

Wish me good luck...

a.rajadurai, newdelhi


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From: Peter Nalepa on 07/23/2008
TO ANSWER THE QUESTION TO THE PXE-E61- Media Test Failure ERROR
Simply
1. Step 1 Press F2 While The Computer Is Starting UP TO Go Into The Bios.
2.On the left Column, Under Onboard Devices, In Intergrated NIC, Select (Off),
3.Click ESC Then Select Save/Exit

Success, Now You Will No Longer Receive The Error!

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From: Michael on 07/22/2008
I had the same problem...media test failure. So I was reading through all this and just tried pushing CTRL-ALT-Delete and it went back to the screen to select safe mode, last known working...etc. I didn't select anything and kept reading...next thing I know, the computer starts its self back up and goes to windows...bam...I got my computer back!
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From: Jose on 07/19/2008
Hi. I have the same problem too.I can get to Bios with F1 but since i enter i cant access any tab at all... Like i have no keyboard. But i do... since i can use Ctrl-AAlt-Del F1 to enter bios , Ctrl Alt S to enter Bios and so on... :S Any propositions plz??
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From: llynne on 07/18/2008
I am still working on it. a pixie error can be so many things, in the end I took a norton systemworks rescue disk (defied the warning about a diffent hard drive and losing files) and now I seem to have the drives that were so missing,

Norton programmers from so long ago..... beautiful job!

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From: kEYUR on 07/17/2008
I have toshiba a10-s177 and the original hard drive went bad, so I tried to replace using the fujitsu had drive of 40gb, which I found compatible on internet... Then After installing, i started seeing issue as PXE-e61 media failure... tried screw unscreew the hard drive multiple times didnt work... I really need some help... and suggestions to get this corrected.. I tried loading bios default, also trie changing all possible combination of boot sequence.

Funny thing is, the TOSHIBA RESTORE disk does load entire windows/OS on the hard driv, i see the LED blinking flashing.... but strange it doesnt boot... appreciate any help ata ll.


Keyur

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From: Reelin19 on 07/17/2008
Mine is a gateway 700xl with the same exact error

what do I do? I need details. I am not a computer geek. HELP

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From: mat on 07/08/2008
thank you so much jase u saved me from sending my computer into a repair shop :)
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From: bobby on 06/25/2008
I experienced this with a Compac Desktop. I ran the IDE hard drive self test in BIOSand it failed on error code 7. Hard Drive Kaputz!
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From: Marcello on 06/17/2008
PXE Error is a DriveLock technology protection.

Start the notebook
press F2 to enter bios
it asks a password
press F12 > it generates a number

with HP/Compaq software you insert the 5 digits and it generates an unlock code that makes you enter bios and reset nios password.

On some HP models you must search unlock6.exe software (r.share).
On Presario 2100 i don't know, i tried unlock6.exe but it didn't work.

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From: Bjorn on 06/14/2008
IBM Thinkpad R50 - problem was purely mechanical - I had been sloppy when changing the harddisk, had not made sure the screws for the mounting piece was tightened completely - the result being that the harddisk was not inserted fully into the IDE contact points ... so the error message was kind of correct ...
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From: me@where.com on 06/08/2008
Go into Bios and load default settings worked!!!! Try this before anything else.
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From: Monica on 06/06/2008
I get the following error message on my HP Pavilion ze4904 laptop

For realtek rtl8139(x)/8130/810x pci fast Ethernet controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61 Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F Exiting PXE ROM.

First my laptop stopped working and I called in a technician, who said my hard drive was gone. But he copied all my information from the old hard drive and said he would come back and install the new hard drive (after I bought it) and reinstall the information. I never saw him again. I bought a new hard drive and now I am getting this error message.I contacted HP customer support, but I think I am in contact with somebody in India, who gives me no help.

I am older and not very good with computer language, but I am usually pretty good at solving my computer problems.

I read all the messages but did not find a solution for me. I do not know what bios mean??

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From: Alastair on 06/05/2008
I had the same error after building a system, but no amount of checking and substituting cables, etc., or fiddling with the BIOS boot order, helped. Turned out there was not only the BIOS, but a separate
configuration utility (accessed by shift-F10 in this case). Disabling the PXE network boot solved the problem - on this MSI P965 Neo motherboard, this option was NOT in the main BIOS settings.
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From: Anton on 05/31/2008
Had one today . Just inserted Win XP cd and HDD was dected and everything booted perfectly
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From: Steve on 05/23/2008
I think one possible issue hasn't been covered to cause this error. I read the entire string (WAY too many posts) and no solution. Then I get to noticing my BIOS weren't saving on the reboot. I popped the laptop open thinking to change the CMOS Battery and found that one of the solder contacts had broken. I fix cell phones, resoldering it won't be an issue, but it further explains issues like not being able to access BIOS. I figure the battery is contacting then losing contact intermitantly. Plan on resoldering tomorrow at work and expect it to fully recover. If it doesn't I'll simply replace the CMOS battery.

Good Luck all!

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From: Les on 05/22/2008
I have an HP Pavilion dv8000. I added a second hard drive to increase space. Then got this message and could not boot. I reopened and took original hard drive out. Saw that there was a black connector on two of the prongs called a jumper. I moved the jumper to same spot on the prongs on the new hard drive. Put both the hard drives back in and problem was gone.
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From: Paul on 05/19/2008
I have a Toshiba Satellite A75 that had the same error tonight when I got home from work - I took off the battery, re-seeded the hard drive and processor, turned the machine back on and everything is working now - strange for sure s the only thing I could see that looked suspect was a some dust (which I just blew out lightly)

Good luck all

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From: Jim on 05/16/2008
I got the same error. Couldn't get into the BIOS. I have an HP Laptop dv1000. I had to take the cover off the back and get to the battery to reset the BIOS. I took out the battery and left out for a few minutes and replaced. Worked perfectly.

Hope this helps somebody.

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From: computer mom on 05/06/2008
Hello,

Try if you can run a hardrive diagnostic.
Look if you see some linklights at the LAN connector.
Check the Primary IDE cable that goes to you HDD. (if you have a voltmeter check for continuity through the wires, that will tell you if the wires are getting any power, if not change wires)
Try to boot into DOS
Try a known good harddrive, or try this hdd in a different system and check if it is booting in a KG system.
If you can rule out the hdd you might have a mobo issue.

If you have an integrated nick card and you might have to change the mobo

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From: Anonymous on 05/03/2008
i have also tried to reset to the factory defaults in the Setup menu, but nothing worked. I dont think it even recognizes that the hard drive is there...
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From: Anonymous on 05/03/2008
i get this message when i try to boot up my laptop
it is a toshiba satellite A135-S4447:

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 082)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
For Realtek RTL8100E/8101E Fast Ethernet Network Adapter v1.02 (060510)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE-ROM.

I looked in the setup under the Boot Tab and i only saw these three things CD/DVD, FDD, and LAN. i tried to disable LAN and it still didnt boot. then i took out the hard drive and it was dirty, so i cleaned it with some isopropel alcohol and secured it tightly with a wedge, but the laptop still doesnt work. Any Help would be useful...

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From: Lindac on 04/30/2008
problem:

From: Pete on 04/21/2008
Help! Im not great with computers but my computer is bein very very loud and I'm getting this message (which seems to be fairly common). I've read some of the responses below but I'm afraid they dont make much sense to me. I took out the hard drive and battery and cleaned 'em out. Didnt see any loose wires. This happened to me a few months back and after a few days of leaving my laptop unplugged, it suddenly started working again. I have a HP Pavillion. Please help me!!

For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exciting PXE ROM'

-----------------------

reason+solution1:

From: stoney on 04/15/2008
i had the very same error in the top of this list today and found it to be a bad ide cable from motherboard to 2 hard drives i replaced it and everything is fine

----------------------------

reason+solution2:

i've had that problem before too, it was when the hard drive was faulty, i had to get a replacement hard drive for it

-------------------------

another problem:

i've been trying to do a dual-boot [have two operating systems at once] but it cannot read the CD, i'm trying to install linux as well as windows, but it has the same error

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exciting PXE ROM

any ideas?

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From: BrilliantJeni on 04/30/2008
I just installed a new Jabra A320s Bluetooth Adapter. After installation, my HP laptop crashed. Upon restarting- got the following message and cannot load OS.


For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exciting PXE ROM'

I've taken out the HD, cleaned everything, and closed back up. Still receiving error message. I've changed the boot order to no avail.

Any other suggestions?

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From: Voyajer on 04/21/2008
I had this problem after changing out a hard drive in my ThinkPad T30. PXE-E61 error means the computer can't read the hard drive and that the boot sequence should be changed.
TO FIX:
I disabled all boot methods in the bios except CDROM. This fixed the error and allowed the computer to read the Windows CD, however, the Windows install could not find the hard drive still.
TO FIX:
I reseated the hard drive and ran Windows setup again. It found the hard drive.
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From: Pete on 04/21/2008
Help! Im not great with computers but my computer is bein very very loud and I'm getting this message (which seems to be fairly common). I've read some of the responses below but I'm afraid they dont make much sense to me. I took out the hard drive and battery and cleaned 'em out. Didnt see any loose wires. This happened to me a few months back and after a few days of leaving my laptop unplugged, it suddenly started working again. I have a HP Pavillion. Please help me!!

For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exciting PXE ROM'

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From: stoney on 04/15/2008
i had the very same error in the top of this list today and found it to be a bad ide cable from motherboard to 2 hard drives i replaced it and everything is fine
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From: funkyfred on 04/06/2008
Hola, I wanted to wipe out my harddrive as it was running very slow for some reason. So I installed DBAN, the program worked like it was meant to however it stopped prematurely stating "missing sectors" to which it cannot finish the tasks. Now I have a computer which is able to load the boot CD however the harddrive is having a clicking noise while not loading anything. I ran the diagnositics and there were a lot of failures related to the CD-RW. Any takers for assistance?
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From: alex on 03/31/2008
hi there,i have the same problem. i have a feeling my problem is self-inflicted though.i installed ubuntu using wubi installer on windows vista and managed to get it running ok until i was updating some programs, which led my system to freeze and so i rebooted and ended up with the pxe-e61 error message. i have tried changing the boot order but i constantly get a message saying HD cannot be found, regardless of what my boot order is. i dont have a floppy drive and quite frankly am a bit stumped at what my options are. word is that the instable ubuntu causes this and am just exploring all possibilities on the net.would really appreciate any help! thanks in advance.
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From: Peter on 03/28/2008
Hey Johny,

Thanks a lot for the detailed instructions. I had problems with a beeping keyboard and found your post by googling "PXE-E61" which I'd noticed at startup. The IT guys at my school told me it was a hardware problem and that I would have to take it back to Toshiba technical service to get it fixed. Not so, it was something with my BIOS and my problem was solved by setting it back to default. Took all of 30 seconds. Many thanks!

Peter

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From: Kathy D on 03/21/2008
Thank you so much for the help. I dropped my computer today, only a foot or so, but I got the message. After fooling around with boot priorities and getting nowhere, I took out the hard drive and reinserted it and voila, it now works.
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From: johny on 03/19/2008
WHAT TO DO - SUMMARY, PART 2

-your Windows installation is corrupt (unlikely for this kind of error): run windows installation of the install CD with repair option

-reformat your hard-drive.

-go into bios and reset the PXE detection in the security section.

-check if the cable to the hard drive is defective.

-the computer is booting to a non-existent external hard-drive, instead of the internal drive. remove or disable the non-existent drive in BIOS setup (see above)

-try a different or new hard-drive.

-disabled the quiet boot in BIOS setup after removing the battery

these fixes go back as far as slashpile on 09/20/2007. if none work, look on this thread before slashpile on 09/20/2007.

(feel free to vote for this post!)

http://inyourear.org

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From: johny on 03/19/2008
WHAT TO DO - SUMMARY

The problem is caused because your computer is not launching the hard-drive when you turn it on.

There are several potential causes of this:

-The motherboard startup settings (BIOS) are out of wack. SOLUTION: Turn on the computer and press the F2 or F10 keys (at the top of the keyboard) as soon as you see anything on the monitor. You should see a message on the screen telling you which F key to press to get into SETUP (getting into toshiba satellite bios you need to keep holding the power button and the escape button until youve been aske to press F1). In setup, select the option to "Reset to Default Settings", and then the option to "Save and exit". If that does not work, go back into the Setup screen, and look for "Boot devices" or "Boot sequence"-- it may be inside a screen called "Boot Settings" or "CMOS Settings". You may have to dig through sub-menus. You want to make sure that LAN or Network is not in the boot device list ahead of HD or Hard Drive. The boot order should be:
1. Floppy
2. CD
3. Hard Drive
4. anything else

-The hard-drive has a mechanical problem, such as a loose connection, or incorrectly installed. SOLUTION: Unplug and open the tower, remove the hard drive gently, making note of all connections. If necessary, label each cable with a bit of masking tape before disconnecting. Get the dust out of the tower, and reinstall the hard-drive securely. If necessary, use a match or bit of cardboard to secure it-- be inventive, but GENTLE. Make sure the cables and jumpers are firmly and correctly connected. If this is a new or intermittent problem, you can assume the cables and jumpers are correct.

Other fixes from this page which may apply to you:

-due to a disconnected keyboard cable (forgot to plug it in after replacing the HDD), of all things.

-disable "Boot to LAN" or "Boot to network" in the BIOS boot sequence (first solution above).

-Check for a RAID setting on your HDD in your bios, switch to IDE.

-the hard drive power cable was not connected

-download and install new BIOS from your computer or motherboard manufacturer: On a working computer, go to their website, and download the correct BIOS Update for your computer. This may take some research. Install the BIOS onto a floppy or USB drive according to their directions. Put the floppy or USB stick into the sick computer, and turn it on (you may need to set startup sequence so that the USB stick is recognized, see first solution above). Your BIOS will get updated. Remove the floppy or stick, and restart the computer.

-if you used the restore disks to reinstall Windows, and your drive is larger than 80 GB, it's possible that the restore disks formatted the drive as a FAT32 system instead of NTFS. FAT32 cannot handle a boot disk larger than 32GB - it becomes unstable. SOLUTION: reformat the drive using the restore disks or a windows install disk as NTFS, not FAT.

-your Windows insta

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From: Kevin on 03/18/2008
Computer: Dell Inspiron 5150
Same boot issue with PXE errors. My fix was resetting the boot order (F2 for boot setup at initial startup) then selecting HDD as first to boot, then CD Rom. This machine makes it pretty easy to get to the setup for the BIOS. Thanks to the forum replies!
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From: los on 03/16/2008
thanks everyone, pointed me in the right direction, after fixing a problem on power supply i got this error and the realized i installed the HD upside down.
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From: Finally! on 03/12/2008
After trying several procedures and following even more infallible instructions, if you have a Dell Inspiron E1505, this may work for you! I reset my BIOS to default but kept getting the flashing "_" every time I rebooted... No good... Then I read to reinstall Windows XP (numerous times) and tried numerous times, but it failed to even run. Here's where the light-bulb and some common sense kicked in... I went back to the BIOS and disabled everything in the sequence for booting up except the CD/DVD drive.. Violla!!!! The disk began to run and now I am able to install the Windows XP... I've worked on this for hours, but it was well worth it, because I feel like I know what I am doing instead of just reading/following instructions. I hope this helps for someone out there and will cut down on some of your frustrations and wasted time... Thanks Microsoft!!!!
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From: Renee on 03/12/2008
Thanks Dan, I have a HP Pavillion also. My problem was my jumper was on backwards. Its working fine now. Something so simple can run you crazy.
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From: Sunny on 03/09/2008
Everytime I switch on my laptop I get the "pxe-e61:media test failure check cable" thing coming up. Can anyone give me step by step instructions on how to fix it as I have no idea about fixing computers.
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From: give me a break on 03/09/2008
How the hell am I supposed to fix the problem? This site is no help what so ever. If you want me to be able to fix the computer just straight up tell me. Fucken jackass.
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From: Ollie on 03/08/2008
It would seem that this is a generic error that covers many problems. I didn't want to delve into the BIOS as I have never fiddled with it to begin with. We were able to fix this problem on my laptop by turning it off, turning it over and removing the cover. We removed the Battery, cleaned all the connection and checked for dust. We then did the same for the Hard drive and both sticks of RAM. We put the lappy back together again turned it on and Voila away it went again. I believe I caused the problem by having my laptop on my lap in bed without a hard surface under it. Just an idea but I was in the middle of reading a file when my screen went blue - then just up and died.
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From: Fred on 02/27/2008
Here is how I solved the PXE-E61 error problem for my Thinkpad X22.
(The X22 is a small laptop with no built-in floppy or CD-drive)

1) Go to Microsoft and download Windows XP Setup boot disks http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994

The Setup boot disks are available so that you can run the Setup program on computers that cannot use a bootable CD-ROM. (I think the X22 supports bootable CD-ROM but I did not want to waste any time finding out)

2) I use a USB floppy drive and a PCMCIA CD-drive (both from Ebay)
(I think the X22 will work with USB CD-drive as well.)

3) Leave Windows XP CD in CD-drive

4) Insert floppy into floppy disk and follow steps, i.e. insert disks 1 to 6

5) After disk 6, the system switches over to the CD-drive and starts installing windows.

Walla! I installed a 100G 7200 rpm drive.

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From: Jacob on 02/26/2008
PXE (pronounced pixie)stands for pre-execution boot environment and, is used to install an OS in a domain based setup. This allows a Hard drive image to be copied over a network to the local hard drive.

If you cannot get past this after the timeout you need to disable PXE boot in the bios or move down in the boot order. This will wither be under the advanced settings for the network card or, under the system settings for boot priority.

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From: sounak on 02/26/2008
regarding this pxe-e61 media test failure issue
reseat the cmos and restart the sys. boot to windows
go to device manager, uninstall network driver and reinstall
issue is resolved
good luck

sounak

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From: mac queen on 02/24/2008
ekim68 - never get to windows, it happens at boot up. I need some help since I'm normally on a MAC and unfamiliar with the pc environment. Can you EXPLAIN anything to try to a pc novice?
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From: Shane on 02/22/2008
I have an Inspiron 1501 that has the same problems as most other people in this forum.

When i tried the Disable on board lan control i didnt get the error message all i got was a black screen with the _ flashing

nothing else happens. if I re-enable the on board lan control it goes back to the same error message

I checked the harddrive and scaned everything for problems using PSA (pre-bios scan assesment) or somthing like that

what do i do

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From: sounak on 02/19/2008
regarding this pxe-e61 media test failure issue
reseat the cmos and restart the sys. boot to windows
go to device manager, uninstall network driver and reinstall
issue is resolved
good luck

sounak

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From: Kangi on 02/18/2008
Opened up my friends laptop (compaq persario v2000) to clean the dust out of the fan, when I put everything back into place I got the same error.

Intel Base-Code, PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2001, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

And then computer went into a unrelenting reboot cycle... grrr

I went into the bios set everything to default, noticed bios still sees the hd info. hd test said no hdd present.

Changed the boot order since it was showing floppy disk as first to boot from that didn't work, still recycles boot with errors

What worked for me was, I attempted one last time to look at every single option in the bios and noticed one setting that showed boot floppy drive enable/disable i changed it to disable and the system booted.

My harddrive and files were intacted!! So really dig in your bios at every option for boot orders or floppy disk that might be enabled before you go beserk and trash the computer hehe

Peace

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From: Sharon on 02/16/2008
Have the same problem... I cannot get into BIOS to change anything. It goes straight to this error message. Any thoughts on how to get into bios.
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From: Michael on 02/15/2008
I recently purchased a Micro Quest used computer for a friend. When I booted up I would get the "pxe-e61: media test failure check cable" message. I would reboot and the computer would work, but the next time I booted-up I would get the same message again. The HDD drive was configured to CS. After I changed the HDD settings to master, I tried some of the solutions here, but the only one that worked for me was to reset to the system default BIOS setting.
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From: sam on 02/04/2008
Check for a RAID setting on your HDD in your bios, switch to IDE, problem gone. For those who encountered this prob after windows is installed, this probably doesnt apply to you. hope it helps!
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From: os on 02/01/2008
Hello i Have an acer aspire 5315 and it fell from my bed. It got a massage pxe-e61 and it would stand there. Then it would say insert boot device and press any key. I have replaced the hd with a new one but it keeps doing it. When I try to reinstalling windows with widows xp cd it says cannot detect harddrive but in the bios it shows the model of hd not capcity though.
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From: Dan on 02/01/2008
The hard drive crashed in my HP Pavillion 4547; Put in a larger Western Digital unit, tried to install Windows, got "PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable" error message. Hell, I don't know much about this stuff, so I found this board and did some searching. Went to the Western Digital website and looked at the directions, didn't see any jumpers on the old nor new hard drives, but in looking for the jumpers I happened to look at the pins on the hard drives. The original hd had an adapter; quicker than a heartbeat that adapter was on the new hd, installed same, checked boot order and it had changed. I put the CD ROM at the top of the list, and Windows is loading as we speak! :)
THANKS GUYS 'n GALS
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From: Bryan on 01/31/2008
Rajesh did u fix the problem i have the same problem in the same order someone please help.
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From: Ed on 01/30/2008
For my Dell X300 laptop, this message was generated due to a disconnected keyboard cable (forgot to plug it in after replacing the HDD), of all things.
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From: Dan on 01/28/2008
OK, I was able to get by the PXE-E61 error by disabling the Internal Network. But I still can't get Windows Setup to see my HDD. The scenario is I'm reviving a T42 Thinkpad Type 2373 Model JTU. I put in a new LCD and a brand new 80 GB IDE HDD (empty) and I have my XP Pro SP2 setup disc spinning when I hit a brick wall. And the blue screen says: Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer. Game Over, press F3. I've tried changing the boot order every which way, now its back to the default settings with the exception of the Internal Network. I've also booted the Thinkpad with the hard drive firmware update utility from the Lenovo site and that program identified my HDD and concluded that my drivers are up to date. But whats weird is I can't see my HDD under the Config list in the BIOS. I've been on this for hours so I'm taking a break but I hope someone here will be able to advise. Thanks for the help!!! I'll be back...
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From: mark on 01/27/2008
I'm at the end. Unless somebody has a reasonable guess my Acer 1690 is slated to be my next 200 yard target.

When I powerup I see:
Broadcom UNDI PXE-2.1 (build 082) v6.2.11a
Copyright 2000-2003 Broadcom Corporation
Copyright 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
All rights reserved

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM
Operating System not found

I've attempted the following solutions offered so far without any success.

Boot order
Recovery cd boot
removed laptop battery
examined for good clean connections to HD
removal and reset of the CMOS battery
words of kindness, abuse, etc.

Is there anything we've omitted that I should try.

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From: Steven on 01/18/2008
Toshiba Satellite Laptop: I have fixed this problem by disable the internal LAN in the BIOS.
Please try it.
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From: Jeff on 01/17/2008
I have tried everything with this problem... Tried reseating battery, memory, gfx card, network card,(couldnt get harddrive out), tried changing the BIOS boot priority. Nothing seems to work. I think I am just going to find a way to erase my harddrive and reinstall XP?
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From: Laurie on 01/17/2008
I just fixed this problem on one of my machines in a lab I teach. The problem was that the hard drive power cable was not connected. A student who had worked on the machine had not tested it to make sure it would boot when they were done and when the next student went to use the machine they received the pxe-e61 error. I was able to get into Setup but until I opened the machine did I find the problem.
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From: Ste on 01/16/2008
I have the same problem but on mine you cant get into the BIOS to check anything, anyone got any ideas
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From: Kel on 01/16/2008
I had the same prob after I got my HP notebook back from HP service for a network adapter problem. While I was on hold for 20 min. I went in to BIOS and changed it to default like someone suggested and it corrected the problem. Support guy kind of stuttered and stammered when I told him I fixed it while I was hold.
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From: phi on 01/08/2008
i just build my first pc/i got the media failure error and it keeps popping up/and i heard ppl say to change stuff in the bios/but than after that i turned the pc up it didn't let me choose to go to the bios or not it jsut goes right to the boot with the (media) error what do you do any suggestions?


msn addreww phamphi1234@hotmail.com

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From: Joe on 12/21/2007
The Intel support page (scroll down to almost the bottom of the page):

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-010254.htm#pxeerror

describes this error message:

Quote
Error "PXE-E61 Media Test Failure" at Boot
The error PXE-E61 Media Test Failure can occur at boot, if all the following are true:

Boot to LAN is enabled in BIOS Setup.
A network cable/connection is not present.
Network Boot is in the boot order before a present boot device.
To resolve this, remove Boot to LAN from the list of boot devices in BIOS Setup.
End of Quote

Open your BIOS and check to see if Boot to LAN is in the startup order. Then remove or disable it.

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From: Serge on 12/21/2007
Hi everybody,
I must be among the lucky ones in this forum. After reading a fair quantity of your postings, I decided, still pessimistic, to try my luck with the path of least resistance: reset the BIOS. It was enough for my Toshiba Satellite A200-121.
Keep faith.
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From: Omondi on 12/15/2007
Hi Guyz, Had the same problem with an IBM T40. Now besides the many guyz who've given solutions, try the following coz it worked for me.
Try down load correct BIOS from the NET. Be careful not to be taken round and round!! Undock battery, CD-ROM drive, Hard-disk and finally the memory modules. Trace where each of them is located. Then re-load them back on and try powering the LT back-on.If the problem recurrs, trace someone with same model of laptop(tall order), load your hard-disk, and memory to that other machine. Try updating the BIOS from there with your memory and hard disk loaded. It may "tell" you something like "There's no need to upgrade your BIOS". Then simply exit thro the instructions. Reload back your memory and HDD to your sick machine. By goodness you should load the OS and be on the road...working again!
Cheerz,
Omosh wa Strath!
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From: Matrix on 12/10/2007
The guy who mentioned the aspire 5100 and restoring to factory defaults was right on the money. I'm always iffy about someone who says "pretty easy fix" but it was pretty easy to fix.
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From: Person_1873 on 12/08/2007
ok people, i have no difficulty booting an operating system, quite the contrary. i am trying to boot a system that cannot boot to CD via PXE, i too get the same message, i'm thinking my issue may be the actual cable, could anyone point me to what kind of ethernet cable to use?
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From: jt on 12/07/2007
I ran into a variation of the PXE-E61 error on my Acer laptop recently and finally figured out what the problem was yesterday. I have an Acer Aspire 5100 laptop. When it crashed, it would not recognize the HDD so it would cycle through boot devices and get stuck on the Realtek device. I used the restore disks that were generated by the machine after purchase. I reformatted the drive and reinstalled WindowsXP MCE - and it did it again. This happened twice with two different hard drives from Acer.

After hooking up the new drive to another machine, I could see that the restore disks were formatting the drive as a FAT32 system with a boot partition the size of the entire drive (~80GB) instead of NTFS. FAT32 cannot handle a boot disk larger than 32GB - it becomes unstable, so I reformatted the drive using a windows XP install disk I keep handy and downloaded the drivers from Acer and now all is fixed.

Hope this helps anyone who needs it.

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From: sMARTI on 12/01/2007
Pretty easy fix,.. when you first turn the computer on hit F2 then scroll over to the right in the "Exit" tab hit "Load Setup Defaults" ,.. hit F10 to save and exit , done.
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From: Paulo on 11/29/2007
mi solution was kind of simple , betwen the to conections behind the hard drive , there is one pin or plug closing to points , move the pin to the last spot , beside the small conection , thia correct the problem for me , i think i was messing with that before i got bad , but now i havn't lose any data
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From: becca on 11/26/2007
ok i been carring my toshiba satallite in my backpack and i just fixed it from a crash i had gotten on it at school and shut down and put it back in my =back pack i than got somewhere else and tried starting it up and now its giving me the pxe-e61 media test failed, check cables. what can i do to fix it it was just working fine right now
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From: Derek on 11/24/2007
I have an HP Pavilian ze4900. Was using the computer, started making sounds so turned it off. Now gives me the message:
For Realtek RTL8139(x)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure.check cable
PXE-M0F: exiting PXE. ROM
I go into F10 and run a test it says it is not detecting my Hard Drive.
What is frustrating is I almost backed up my computer last week,damn. Any help anyone can offer is extremely appreciated I desperately need photos off this computer(wedding & graduation, please help) Computer novice here. deek01@yahoo.com. help.
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From: Derek on 11/24/2007
I have an HP Pavilian ze4900. Was using the computer, started making sounds so turned it off. Now gives me the message:
For Realtek RTL8139(x)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.13 (020326)
PXE-E61: Media test failure.check cable
PXE-M0F: exiting PXE. ROM
I go into F10 and run a test it says it is not detecting my Hard Drive.
What is frustrating is I almost backed up my computer last week,damn. Any help anyone can offer is extremely appreciated I desperately need photos off this computer(wedding & graduation, please help) Computer novice here. dee01@yahoo.com. help.
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From: Ed on 11/23/2007
Computer: Toshiba Satellite 2805-S301
OS: Win XP Pro
The PXE-E61 error message displays on booting up whenever I change the sequence of booting, in the BIOS, to put the CD-ROM first which puts the LAN second and then the HD. Making that change is necessary when wanting to force bootup from a CD. For my machine, it does not prevent anything and if there is no CD in the drive, it will eventually boot from the HD. I typically reset the BIOS to default so as not to see the error message but have not found any problems with the machine after the error message displays.
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From: Jim on 11/21/2007
Hi, I got the same problem after I change a new HD because it didn't have an operating system. All I did was put the OSD(Operating System Disc)came with the laptop into the cd drive and reboot the computer. Press ESC until the screen shows the booting method. Select cd-rom and it will begin to install Windows Xp. Everything was fine after the installation. My Laptop is Compaq V2000.
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From: Jimbo on 11/19/2007
I was having the the same error message then i went into the bios and found that it was trying to boot to my network card after changing the settings and restarting the computer i was able to fire it up again....YAY!!
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From: Jimbo on 11/19/2007
I was having the the same error message then i went into the bios and found that it was trying to boot to my network card after changing the settings and restarting the computer i was able to fire it up again....YAY!!
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From: Chad on 11/18/2007
Hi I have the same prob I don't know what to do I have a compact Persario r3000 and all is says is PXE-E61 media test failure ... I don't know what to do I tried reseting it and im to afraid to take my baby apart
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From: Jose on 11/16/2007
I just built my first pc, im am getting the pxe e61 media failure and my pc shuts off by itself i went to bios and change the ordre and still get it and my pc still cuts off by itself shortly after i tired downloading xp but it shuts off again does anyone have any sugestions?
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From: Struja62 on 11/16/2007
People when you start your engine first press shift and F10 and then you will see what you need to do !!!!
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From: don ilias on 11/14/2007
hello there
I used to have a problem with my laptop: toshiba satellite a45 s250.
after being infected by a virus i decided to format my laptop (runnin on xp) after the format i could reinstall it
the error was
Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.18
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure
Check cable

and keep switchin on and off. to check if my laptop was ok first thing that i did was to check the bios and see if the settings are as default. (getting into toshiba satellite bios you need to keep holding the power button and the escape button until youve been aske to press f1)so i made sure that was as defdault and then run a live linux disk to check if my laptop was ok. the linux disk was workin so i thought that something wrong was on my hard-drive. when back into bios and just change the optiop to run through the internal pc build in card and everything was fine. hope that is helpful.
cheers

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From: Mr Ben on 11/13/2007
Fantastic .... after lots of reading and trying many different options it finally came back to life. PHEW!

many thanks to all who posted.

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From: Shib on 11/13/2007
Hey im currently depolyed overseas so i want to try and fix my problem here and not have to send my Lappy back to the states. Heres the problem at first it was giving me the pxe-e61 it would boot up to my windows login screen but then my keyboard would freeze and the screen would go black and grey. I messed with it last nite with no success. I take out the bat. Go to sleep for the night. I wake up 5hrs l8er and i tried to boot it up again. Now it give me the pxe-e61 and it says that it cant find the Operating system. So i look online and i find this forum. I went to my boot order changed it to default and excluded the network boot. It got rid of the pxe-e61, but it still couldnt find the OS. Ne1s help would be nice.
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From: Bill Halamicek on 11/11/2007
I used two different new motherboards with same hard drive getting same results. I got fed up and did windows installation with repair option. Corrected problem. Is a windows screw up as usual. If hardware changes at all, Micro ScrewSoft makes you reinstallwindows and reregister. Lawsuit,anyone?
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From: joe on 11/02/2007
After turning on my pc i get a message "A disk read error occorred"
Please ctrl+alt+del to restart.

there is no floppy in the drive.

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From: JAY on 11/02/2007
WOW, got that dreaded message pxe-e61. read the posts and decided to check bios boot order. the cd drive was disabled and the nic card was enabled. just reversed the two and presto, works now. thanks to all.
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From: BOB on 10/30/2007
BUNCH OF BS FOR A GOOD MBOARD GOOD H DRIVE. GREEDY PEROPLE SHOULD BE DENIED LIFE......IT DOES NOT COMPUTE!
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From: kib on 10/29/2007
after defragmenting my hard disc with livescan the V2000 laptop decided to show the pxe error on boot and after a few minutes after loading XP screen went black. I tried all the things mentioned in this forum. I even reinstalled XP.

As a last resort I tried an old copy of XP without SP2 and it allowed me to format the hard drive (C:) and guess what the computer works fine now! Has anyone tried formatting their hard drives?

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From: gene on 10/18/2007
Heres what I did
I removed the pc battery,then the hard drive checked the pins and the contact inside all which were good.
I adjusted the bracket holding the hard drive out a little so the hard drive sits completely in side the connector,then tightend it with the screw but cut cardboard form a box to fit between the screw lock and the cover for added tightness in the case when moved .

Both errors were gone.

This is a Toshiba Satellite with XP Home on it.

Thats why we have the computer show we do live on the radio and coming back soon and people need answers.
We actually help.

Bits & Bytes


I hope I helped.

suneradio.com
email is info@suneradio.com Let me know how you made out.

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From: Raj on 10/04/2007
Issue solved, I just took my laptop into Service repair center, after $1,000 in repairs done from Warranty,<====thank god

Any advice ont his issue, give me email @ rkhanna703@gmail.com

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From: Eladio on 09/29/2007
PXE-E61 error = check that the case intrusion was not set. If so go into bios and reset the PXE detection in the security section. Also, check if the hard drive is wiped or if the cable to the hard drive is defective.
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From: Happy Fella on 09/26/2007
Same problem with my Toshiba PortegeR100

I unscrewed the cover of the HD, noticed that the HD got a bit out of place, pressed it into th eposition, stuck in a match for further support and it worked.

Thanks to all of you for your advise.

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From: Albert on 09/25/2007
I too had this problem that presented itself after the failure of my Toshiba P35-S609's original HDD woofed it's cookies!

After reading over many suggestions on this forum, I went ahead and F2'd and set the Network Boot part to "disable" (putting an ! next to the choice).

Since I already took the computer down the bones, and cleaned the CPU fan, and a thorough spring cleaning of the innards, I also sprung for a 1G RAM and a new 120GB HDD from Western Digital (their Scorpio-that is compatible). Because the new HDD doesn't have any OS's on it, I was able to get past all the mumbo about the "media failure" (cause it doesn't look for the network) and then simply says OS SYSTEM NOT FOUND. HOOORAH!!

I will deal with any of the more serious issues later!

Thanks to all who posted, without you I would not have known what to do, nor would I have posted!

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From: Super-d on 09/25/2007
Same issue as everyone else. Some background, though, in case someone found this site by entering V2000 into search engine.

The laptop is a V2000 that is a little over two years old. Due to the construction of it, the power pin that the adapter plugs into broke off, thus the laptop was not turning on.

I removed the back of it and soldered a makeship power plug on to the existing one. I then attached the adapter to the new "plug".

After re-assembly of unit, I went to test it and it powered up but continued to give the

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

error. I was unable to get into BIOS by pressing ESC, F10 or F12. The keyboard worked because I was able to reboot by using CTL ALT DEL. Since I was unable to check the BIOS, I disassembled unit again to check for any loose connection and found none.

After re-assembly, same thing. I removed the HD from the unit and checked the connectors and found nothing out of the ordinary.

I re-inserted the HD into the unit and by chance I pushed it against the connectors, which it did allow me to do. Again, HD in, then push the HD toward the center of the laptop, which causes the connection to be tight.

Re-Boot and right into Windows. Now I have a different issue (laptop keeps shutting off after entering Windows in Normal Mode), but the initial one is fixed.

So make sure that the HD connection is tight.

Thanks for all the other posts. This site is very informative.

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From: Mahmoud on 09/25/2007
i have the same proplem but with dell power edge 2800 server

pxe-e61:media test failure,check cable
pxe-m0f:exiting intel boot agent
i want 2 konw this fuckin errors
plz if any one know the solution plz replay me

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From: pete on 09/24/2007
thanks to Kim for her 7/10 suggestion. I had the same realtek error as rajesh, went to bios and found that the computer was now, for reasons still obscure, booting from the external hard drive rather than the laptop hard drive. switched the boot order. and then had a drink to celebrate.
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From: Burden on 09/21/2007
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

Ok after reading nearly half of this page and trying everything that was mentioned. I bit the bullet and gave up. Nothing worked.

But as mentioned above, the fault was nothing to do with cables. It was infact the HDD. I placed a spare HDD that was lying around in the laptop and hey presto the thing fired up (be it not to a opertaing system as there wasn't one installed).

So make sure that if you do have this problem that nothing has been knocked or banged. Seems as a damaged HDD will report a error about cables. How stupid!

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From: slashpile on 09/20/2007
I have an m70.....I decided tonite to clear it out because sonic would not burn....then the hell began..same error appeared that is all over this thread..just nice a had a desktop to google with and find your thread.....My recovery disc would fail at 30% ...Im not rich and was terrified Id killed my lappy... I did move all imortant stuff to a maxtor mini hd b4hand.....I f12ed the skank and disabled the quiet boot after removing the battery......It might have been a temp issue in regards to the shutdown as I was using some powerful video editing stuff in hours b4 messing around.....anyway I read your thread did those two things and I just heard the annoying yet magical windows theme....thank you from the backwoods of canada....slashpile loves you all
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From: SoCalHoosier on 09/18/2007
The solution is quite simple and it doesn't involve reseating or replacing your hard drives.

The system in question needs to have its BIOS modified so that it no longer looks for a particular Network boot device. (just disable)

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From: Steve on 09/17/2007
For Bill who posted on 9/9:
Your solution to reset the boot order did the trick for me too. Resetting the boot sequence to default got rid of the same error message I had on my Vaio PCG-FXA48.

Thanks!

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From: Bill Long on 09/09/2007
I had the problem with a Compaq V2000. I swapped the hard drive with a good hard drive one from another V2000 and the problem didn't occur. So, I bought a new HD on eBay, installed it, formatted it and installed the OS using the restore CD, and when I restarted the computer the problem was still there! Then I found this forum. I reset the BIOS to default, and the problem went away. That left me wondering if the original HD is really bad. It is. It wont spin-up, just makes a repeating clicking sound.
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From: Mrmac on 09/05/2007
i have (had) the same problem...i turn BIOS to defoult, unplug - plug battery and now it works perfect, after that install drivers again (especialy REALINK!!!) and thats all........thatnks to ur advices....
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From: Mich on 08/20/2007
Figured it out guys.... no brainer after all. :( Figured I'd try replacing the HD and see if my PXE-61 Media Test Failure error goes away. Wish me luck!
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From: Micheline on 08/20/2007
Duh.... can anyone help me figure out how to take this HD out of my notebook? It's a Toshiba Satellite M45-S169. I've taken HD's out of IBM's before by just unscrewing a few screws, pulling the door off.... and voila... HD! But no such luck on this thing. Do I have to take the whole cover off? Just doesn't seem right. I've looked in the Toshiba online pdf manual, but nothing there about hard drives. Anyone have a similar notebook?

Thanks
Mich

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From: Gjules on 08/14/2007
just change the boot order in your bios screen. make the nic card last in the list, or below the hard drive
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From: Alex on 08/10/2007
I replaced a Motherboard on a Dell Precision 670. When I booted, I got the same error. Saw Kim's 7/10 post, dropped to BIOS setup and loaded default settings, and it worked like a charm. Spent remainder of the day congratulating myself and drinking coffee.
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From: FIDEL CASTRO on 08/07/2007
I have a gateway. I was getting the PXE E61-media test failure eror message, but I noticed that often if I pushed the underside of the laptop , the laptop would reboot and give me the desktop again-so i suspected something was not properly in place.

I removed the plate covering the HD, took-out the hard-drive, re-inserted it, and i even made a little pad to add pressure and keep it in place once the plate cover wss screwed back on.

That fixed the problem. I suspect the HD was shifting around.And properly so, for it appears that there were 2 of four screws missing , that keep the HD neatly in place.

No more troubel.

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From: Alicia on 08/06/2007
I'm just copying this from earlier, as it fits my problems perfectly.

I too have the PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable Error.

When I start the machine, the Toshiba Logos appear (but no option of Press blah to get into BIOS setup). During this time the HD tries to read something for a while and finally gives up and then the E61 & M0F errors appear in a loop indefinitely in the black background. I do not get the option of getting into the BIOS setup. I am still unable to get into the BIOS setup. It allows me to choose what I would like to boot from but nothing works, I get the same error.

I reseated the HD, RAM, Battery and tried, no use. I removed and then replaced thte HD, then tried to boot. Still same E61 error appears.

Interestingly, I have the bootable OS recovery CD (Win XP Home). When I inserted the CD into the drive and tried to boot, it is not able to boot from the CD (I checked the CD in another machine, it boots from that CD). I still remember that the CD Drive is in the Boot list and the drive was working fine.

1. Even if I assume that the HD is damaged (just replaced), should it not boot from the CD?

2. If yes, is there something wrong with my BIOS or perhaps CD-ROM?

3. What is the alternate way to access the BIOS setup?

Looking forward to your suggestions.

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From: Mike on 08/05/2007
If you're using just one IDE cable, try switching the master and slave slots for the CD-rom and the HDD.
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From: Billy on 08/04/2007
Kim's suggestion (7/10/07)worked for me.

So you know, the computer worked fine until I installed two programs.

1. Canon A560 camera software
2. Epson CX6000 printer software

Not sure which one caused the problem because I rebooted after installing both.

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From: Tom on 08/04/2007
First of all, thanks to all the people who take their own time to help other people on this great site.

Here's what I did if you're interested (P4 Toshiba Satellite Lappy):

1. Re-seated the battery (Just try it .. only 2 seconds of your time =P)

2. Unplugged/plugged the Hard Drive back.

3. Re-seated RAM

4. I actually tested the CMOS battery. It was fine.

5. I basically changed everything in the BIOS according to other posts.

6. My bro suggested I get a new HD ... so I did.

7. Installed OS and works. If you cant live without files on your computer right now you should probably go to an expert (ie, Future Shop) and they can probably salvage your files for a sum of money.

Regards, Tom =)

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From: Bryan on 08/04/2007
I have a Toshiba A35 laptop, about 4 years old. This morning I started getting the same PXE-E61 & PXE-M0f errors in a loop when trying to boot up. The laptop was working and then it just stopped and started doing this. In reading through all of your posts, I checked the HDD to make sure it was seated properly. It actually wasn't and when I removed it, then reseated it, the laptop is working fine now. In one of the previous posts, someone stated that it could be a problem that doesn't have just one fix. I think they're right. The best tools I could give myself to fix this were patience and persistence. Good luck to anyone else with this same problem.
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From: Kent on 07/29/2007
I changed my Jumper setting from Master to CS and it booted right up.
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From: Koen on 07/27/2007
hi, i have the same problem but i know how to fix it and all the thing is, it wont regonize my dvd rw.

This is why it says invalid disc volume etc.

I tried to make it boot from the cd via the bios but it doesnt even show cd/dvd rom station in the bios list.

it only shows boot from lan and HTS541010G9SA00

plz help :(

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From: hmm on 07/26/2007
All you need to fix this error is to have a bootable source. If your hard drive worked and then you start up and get the error, unplug the harddrive and put it back in. If this does not work, get a new hard drive and re-load your OS.
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From: Steve on 07/21/2007
My sister's laptop is having the same problem. The screen reads:

"Broadcom UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 082) v2.0.4
Copyright © 2000-2003 Broadcom Corporation
Copyright © 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
All Rights Reserved.

Intel Base-Code, PXE-2.1 (build 082J)
Copyright © 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM."

and then it goes to the blue and grey screen with the options and what to do. I have disabled Network boot and also changed the boot order to:
Floppy Drive
CD Drive
Hardrive
Network Boot

We have taken out the battery and held down the power button for 30 seconds too and that did not work. Any tips?!

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From: Mark on 07/19/2007
I pulled my hair out on this one also...tried everything already mentioned. Here's what solve it for me:

I used GParted (you could also use another utility that reads partition tables, I suppose) to scan my drive partitions and found that one of the new partions recently created was set as boot. Simply designated the first partion on the drive as boot instead, fired it back up and reinstalled XP for good measure. Working great now.

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From: Lee on 07/16/2007
I have the same problem. I have been unable to set to default. I can't find that screen. When I hit escape, it doesn't ask to save changes and exit etc, it goes back to error message. How do you set default on the optiplex p-2?
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From: Alfredo on 07/14/2007
The solution from Kim on 07/10/2007 works great!! Thanks
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From: Sho Masaki on 07/11/2007
I've had the same problem with my friends HP laptop after installing a new HD. I want to be a hero here, so if you can help out...I love you forever. I've never installed a laptop HD before, but I'm almost positive I did it correctly. Thanks guys/gals.

westernshootor@hotmail.com

THANK YOU!

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From: Kim on 07/10/2007
I Put my Bios settings on Default and then voila, it worked fine!!
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From: Seán on 07/09/2007
i had the sdame problem... outta the blue...

i removed the HDD, then put the thing back in...

volla... problem gone...

i must have come slightly undone...

awesome thrtead

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From: Chris on 07/07/2007
Dell Dimension 8200; HDD not available after connecting up a 250GB Maxtor drive. Set drive to MASTER not CS. If the Machine setup (F2) reveals Primary and Secondary Hard disk drive not found. Remove the system battery and re-intall it. Try again F2.. whoopie Hard disk now present.
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From: Crystal on 06/21/2007
To correct this problem, restart your laptop by powering off. During the boot up, select F10 for setup. Goto the boot priority setting and select default settings. this should correct the anomaly. save the settings and restart your computer. it should boot off the hard drive.
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From: Tim on 06/21/2007
Believe or not, I fixed this problem by rapping my laptop's keyboard when I desperated on the problem. I cant believe i have to rap my new laptop when meetting such problem.

I have to contact my provider.........

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From: laila on 06/09/2007
oh my god i have the same problem. my laptop dropped weeks before it froze and crashed but it worked still even after it fell. and when it crashed my pc froze and made this strange noise so i pulled of the cable and when i turned it on then it happened> its says>
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting broadcom PXE ROM
Operating system not found.
the most important thing to me is my files so
does anyone know if its possible to save my extremely valuable data in any way (by a technician ofcourse) from disc c and d? please please dont tell me its impossible.lol.
thnx
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From: jtmax24 on 06/04/2007
Hey, reading your replies my problem does not look good. I have a Compaq Presario 2100 laptop. With an AMD motherboard with ATI video. About three days ago I was playing 'The Sims 2' and the game decided to freeze and then crash. I thought oh okay just typical. When the game crashed is froze the laptop, and I did a force power-off by of course holding the power button down for 2 seconds.

Anyways, when I booted back up, I start getting this PXE-E61 error. I immediate dug out the old WIN XP (home) and proceeded to try and repair the situation. After countless times of trying (okay twice) I would not repair and would exit out and return to the C:> prompt, but would not read the C:> or HD. I will read the CD drive though.

I was hoping that the problem was not a HD problem, but from your guys answers it sounds like it is. Has anyone managed to save their data from their HD when they fixed the problem???

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From: Boyd on 06/04/2007
I've this problem of PXE-E61, I just reseated the HD and then problem gone. Also big thanks to all.
Cheers,
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From: kelly on 05/26/2007
I Just had this problem with a recently puchased "Freegeek" computer. The harddrive wasn't properly connected. It was an easy fix except I had to pull the badly fit power supply to get the cable in correctly. Check power cables.
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From: Paul on 05/17/2007
I have a Compaq Presario V2000 series notebook. I too have the PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable Error.

When I start the machine, the Compaq/Intel Centrino Logos appear (but no option of Press F10 to get into BIOS setup, as opposed to regular appearance). During this time the HD tries to read something for a while and finally gives up and then the E61 & M0F errors appear in a loop indefinitely in the black background. I do not get the option of getting into the BIOS setup. I tried to start by holding the F10, as recommende by the user manual from HP, no use. I am still unable to get into the BIOS setup.

I reseated the HD, RAM, Battery and tried, no use. I removed HD, ODD and Battery, then tried to boot. Still same E61 error appears.

Interestingly, I have the bootable OS recovery CD (Win XP Home). When I inserted the CD into the drive and tried to boot, it is not able to boot from the CD (I checked the CD in another machine, it boots from that CD). I still remember that the CD Drive is in the Boot list and the drive was working fine.

1. Even if I assume that the HD is damaged, should it not boot from the CD?

2.If yes, is there something wrong with my BIOS?

3. What is the alternate way to access the BIOS setup?

Looking forward to your suggestions.

Paul

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From: tabue on 05/05/2007
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

Solution for my computer:
After several hours of trying all of the above. Changed hard drive and cdrom jumpers from CS to Master, added a floppy disk drive, and set the bios to system defaults. Boot 1: CDROM, 2: Hard drive, 3: Legacy Floppy, 4: disable. MEDIA TEST FAILURE, CHECK CABLE start up message is gone. One or more of the above may have solved the problem.

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From: Roy on 05/03/2007
Same problem for me.. I got a Acer laptop(brand new) and there was a problem : PXE - MOF existing broadcom and PXE E61 MEDIA TEST FAILURE PXE ROM.

In the bios, I jus move down : network broadcom MBA( in the order of boot)

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From: Cañizares on 04/30/2007
Ok, not sure if this problem goes here, but it also has shown the mentioned "boot over lan" error, so here it goes:

I own a Toshiba Satelitte P25-SP526 and about two months ago it started showing signs of inminent HDD failure (it warned me about it) until it crashed, so after carefully (i hope) surfing for the right replacement i chose the MK1234GX HDD (5400 rpm 120 G.) to replace my original MK8012GAS (4200 80 G.) because according to the manual it was compatible.
So i purchased the thing and installed it, and it wouldn´t be detected so i freaked upon further inspection i reallized tha I also had made the mistake of not seing the conector piece that was used to attach the old HDD to the IDE, fixed it now, anyway after that the boot over lan error started appearing so i went to my bios and fixed the booting order and it finally asked me for a disc to boot from and i inserted the original recover disk that came with the machine, and it started fine, but whn it started looking for the installed peripheralls it froze and restarted the machine, over and over, so i figured that it was because it was looking for the original HDD that came with the machine, and since it couldn´t find it, well, it couldn´t install windows and/or the system, not sure about thsi las part because both HDD are toshiba originals.
Anyway i inserted another Windows XP disk and ¡Voila! it started installing and formating the new HDD, but when it was done formating (100%) it´s telling me that it cannot continue with the installation because there was an error "loading the OS" :S
I dont know what else to do, if someone could tell me that my new HDD it´s not fried and there´s a way to get the machine up a running it would be greatly appreciated.

PS1. could it be that (even though toshiba said it would) my new 5400 rpm 120g. HDD can´t be handled by my laptop which previously had a 4200 rpm 80g. HDD?

PS2. about 3 months before the old HDD started giving me problems i recently installed and extra gig of ram into my machine for a 2 gigs total, could that have had anything to do with my old HDD being fried?
(read something like that somewhere but sounds really rare).

PS3. the new Windows XP disk, I´m using to install, was an old disk that only comes with SP1 in it, could that have something to do with this?

anyway, any help you guys can give will be greatly appreciated and will surely buy you a ticket to heaven or similar place, thanks in advance!

Cañizares -3D pseudo-artist without the means to subsist.... crap-
LOL

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From: Calzilla on 04/29/2007
Hi People,
I've been reading through your posts as I got this PXE error. In my case, and I would imagine in quite a few other cases, the BIOS was set to Boot Other Devices at some point. This is usually after the boot priority settings. Thus, if there is no HDD (or a dead one), no bootable floppy, and no bootable CD in the respective drives, it starts looking for a LAN to boot from. Try disabling the Boot Other Devices and if the error message becomes No System Disk or Disk Error, then the chances are you have a bad HDD or more positively a new paperweight. I replaced the HDD with one I knew worked and it's now working quite happily.
Great thread, btw, took me no time to get to the bottom of this. I hadn't seen this error before.
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From: rodry on 04/27/2007
who now how to boot from a partition on a hard drive?
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From: FDISK IT on 04/14/2007
PUT A 98 BOOT DISK IN THE FLOPPY DRIVE...THEN START WITH CD ROM SUPPORT...THEN WHILE A DRIVE IS SELECTED (IT WONT DETECT ANOTHER DRIVE AT THIS POINT...TYPE 'FDISK' IT WILL FORMAT C DRIVE...IN MY CASE THE DRIVE WAS NEW (WHOLE MACHINE NEW)SO WASNT DETECTING THE HARDDRIVE...WORKED FOR ME ANYWAY...BEST OF LUCK!
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From: Kim on 04/12/2007
It might be worth posting that loose or absent power connection to the CD-ROM also causes this error.
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From: Frog on 04/12/2007
Hi, I purchased a 2nd hand mini-itx computer and after setting it up I get this error. But apparently unlike most others out there, the computer still boots without problem after this error displays for a 1/2 second immediately after POST, before Windows loads. Then the OS loads and runs apparently without error. The network boot option was never selected in the BIOS to begin with, and I have disabled all but the 2 hard drives in the boot priority selections.

I also note that the LAN cable is functional, and I have used the LAN to connect to the internet over a cable connection after booting, so I know that LAN was good when I tried it.

I tried all the fixes I could from this and other forums, including exchanging/reseating all connectors, different RAM, resetting the BIOS, both in the BIOS and by using the MB jumper, changing the battery, a different power supply, and more besides. The only one that worked for me was to disable the LAN in the BIOS.

So disconcerting as it is to get that error message, I see nothing else wrong with this computer. I have temporarily disabled the LAN just so not to see that error msg, but the msg itself does not seem to indicate anything. If I ever want to use the LAN connector clearly I will have to see that message again. The only other thing I can think of is to flash the BIOS, if a better BIOS is available. I usually reserve this as a last measure in fixing a MB, and I may not even bother since this error appears to be non-critical. I will look for a newer BIOS at VIA's website anyway. Cheers, Frog

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From: Landon on 04/07/2007
Okay...i have a Toshiba Sattelite laptop. When i boot up the system it will go to the first screen that says....TOSHIBA. and will let me go into the BIOS if i want. then the next screen i recieve this message.

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

it will blink off and on. so i went into the bios and looked at the booting order...and all the things have ! beside them. there are four options. like CD rom, Hard drive, USB, and another one i forget. So now i have completely taken apart my laptop and cannot find the problem...any suggestions...Ive read just about all the post below. and still have the problem. I havent bought a New HD yet...so im thinking that is my next step. Thank you.

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From: Daniel on 03/29/2007
Other people have written "Disable PXE remote boot option in boot tab of the BIOS setup." I've gotten to the BIOS setup by pressing F12 or F2, but I can't find the boot tab. Any help?
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From: Daniel on 03/29/2007
Other people have written "Disable PXE remote boot option in boot tab of the BIOS setup." I've gotten to the BIOS setup by pressing F12 or F2, but I can't find the boot tab. Any help?
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From: Daniel on 03/29/2007
Hi,

I have a Dell Inspiron 1200.

I am not that great with computers. I need to know how to get rid of the Intel Boot Agent (or at least to get that message that the other people have gotten). Could someone please write a short step-by-step guide how.

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From: Stan on 03/28/2007
I'm looking at the same PXE-E61 error right now. The computer is a Compaq Presario 2100 Laptop. My daughter dumped 2/3 of a liter of water into it last week. It's been slowly coming back, with the video showing up three days ago, and the laptop booting from the battery yesterday.
Right now the PXE-E61 message is there because we removed there's no hard drive in it. We're still trying to get it running (it just clicks).

Putting a substitute hard drive in makes the message go away. With the hard drive in, it will *read* a CD (DVD/CDRW). But it won't boot form a CD, with or without a hard drive. A CD is readable, though.

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From: Bylliejo on 03/24/2007
I am not sure, I saw all of your posts which gave me enough confidence that i am not just SOL. Some one maybe can help.
I have a HP Pavillion ze4200, windows prof. thats all i really know. I have tried so many things. The computer starts normally windows professional ect. Then you can hear the windows music, the screen stays black. You can hear the pop ups from my virus scan and like everything is normal just the screen is black. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
email me to bbyluvzzz@aol.com

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From: Asherlo on 03/22/2007
Oops! ran out of space, to add to my reply below.

4.Change boot type, PXE to something else.

5.CMOS battery failure (probably more rare).

6.Caused by recent Hardware changes-- undo or adjust for changes.

7.Bootable CD or Floppy (or possibly the drive itself) is not working-- try muliple boot CDs/Floppies--Worked for me!--if necessary, replace drive.

Well, here's a few possibilities, I'm sure there are others as well.
Hope it helps!

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From: Josh on 03/22/2007
worked for me!
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From: Asherlo on 03/22/2007
Hey, I too experience this exact error message, followed by a 'operating system not installed' error message.

It seems like this problem does not have any single solution or cause.

In my case, it started with a faulty HD on a T20 thinkpad laptop. The bad hard drive brought up the media test failure error message and either the 'operating system not found' error message or a 'hard drive not installed' error.

I took the old HD out and put a new one in, and still received the 'PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable' error message, I also still received the 'operating system not found' error message, but did NOT receive the 'hard drive not installed' message-- my first clue that the hard drive was installed right and operational again (it didn't show me whether HD was recognized or not in BIOS, but check this if available).

Keep in mind, this HD was new with no OS on it. I was trying to run the Windows XP CD to install OS, but could not get past the error message.

What I did. A.) Took out HD and reseated B.)Took out battery and reseated C.)Reset default BIOS configuration D.)Changed BIOS boot sequence to #1.CD #2.HD , #3.Floppy, #4.NIC, #5.IBA Slot E.)Disabled network boot in BIOS F.)Checked jumper setting on HD

-- all of these had worked for other people to solve their problem, but not for me.

What worked. -- I took out the Windows XP disk (which was burned), and put in a PC software disk called 'Boot Genius'. Boot Genius ran ok (telling me that my CD-drive was operational), with Boot Genius I was able to detect my newly installed HD (telling me that the new HD was installed ok and was working)-- I was also able to run diagnostics, tests, and set up the drive with FAT32 and a partition with Boot Genius (it's now ready for OS).

The error message is now gone and instead I have, 'no operating system, insert OS setup disk and press any key'.

Ok!, I pop WinXP in, it's a no go.

The conclusion, problem started when HD went bad, problem continued when all hardware was installed and working correctly, but, the WinXP CD (which should be bootable) was not working, perhaps because it was missing crucial information or drivers, perhaps because it was burned- don't know. I also tried a WinME factory CD that I have but it would not install on any system other than a Dell.

The solution (for me), get a bootable OS CD that actually works! Simple as that.

This is just to demonstrate that it is possible to get this error message even if all of the hardware (FRU) on you system is working, but the bootable CD itself (or bootable floppy) is not.

Other possible causes that I ran accross include,

1.(and/or) HD/Battery/RAM Memory needs to be reseated or replaced, logically it would seem that this could also be true for CD drive/ Floppy.

2.BIOS needs configuration changes, revert to default, change boot sequence, disable network boot, change integrated periph (from on-chip serial ATA to Auto for instance).

3.Check HD jumper

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From: oscar on 03/22/2007
Thank you Guys for all your posts, they were really helpful. They helped resolve my problem. Thanks again.
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From: Amber on 03/21/2007
I had the "media test failure" problem also, accompanied by the sound of a clicking hard drive when I tried to boot my laptop. Ultimately I thought the best way to test for a hard drive failure would be to swap out the current hard drive and replace it with the one from my other laptop. I was both sad and relieved to see the other drive boot right up - that meant the original hard drive was toast, yet now I didn't have to spend any more time trying to diagnose. Knowing the drive was bad, my husband opened it up to check it out and found a deep groove going around the whole platter, likely caused by a particle of dust. Argh.

So I guess my advice to anyone with the "media test failure..." message is, if the BIOS reset suggestions fail to help, try booting up with another hard drive.

Oh, I would also suggest checking out the support page for your computer or laptop. My laptop is an HP, and when I went to the troubleshooting area of their support site (long after much googling), they actually had this very "media test failure" message posted with suggesetions on how to fix.

Regards,
Amber

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From: Joseph on 03/21/2007
I was getting the same error after removing a slave IDE hard drive with no OS on it. Windows was installed on a SATA drive and my IDE drive was empty. pulled the IDE drive out of my system (it has NO system files on it) and then started getting this error.

After putting back the empty IDE drive, Windows boots to the SATA drive with no problem. But without the IDE drive, it won't boot. Not sure why this is happening, but that was the fix.

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From: George on 03/18/2007
May you all be blessed 1000 fold as your feedback has greatly benefitted me. I too was receiving the PXE-E61: Media test failure error and the experts I brought it to had no clue why my Compaq Presario R3000 was behaving this way. I restarted my hard drive so many times I am surprised I didn't fry it. Suffice it to say I reseated my hard drive and all is better. Thank you all once again.
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From: DanKeys on 03/16/2007
I bought 4 laptops from a company that erases data from computers that companies get rid of. I turn it on and it

goes through these messages.

1. F12= Network Service Boot (it quickly disappears)
2. Initializing Intel Boot Agent Version 2.6 (build 004)
3. Intel UNDI, PXE=2.0 (build 071)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

Non-System disk or disk error -- replace and strike any key when ready (End of messages)

Putting bootable CDs in the drive doesn't work, and there's no floppy drive.

Pressing F10 gets me to the BIOS and here's what I find in there.

*******************************************************************************
Title "Computer Setup 1.00

Boot options:
"QuickBoot" Enable/Disable
"MultiBoot"
Boot Order:
-NoteBook MultiBay
-NoteBook hard drive
-NoteBook Ethernet

Device Options:
Num Lock state at boot
Multiple pointing devices
USB legacy support
Internal display controller
Video out
Parallel port mode
Intel SpeedStep technology
Docking base Unique Identification
Processor Number

Device security:
(the whole list)

System IDs:
Notebook asset tag "....."
Notebook ownership tag "....." (two lines)
(are these important to set up?) I know the asset tag but not the ownership tag

Password stuff:

Restore defaults:
***********************************************************************************
Ok, that's all that is available in the BIOS.
I don't know what to do next. Do I have to boot from a network? And if so, can I set this up myself?

Please help!!!! I would really appreciate it. Thank you.
Here are my computer specs:
*********************************************************
Compaq Armada M700, P3, 750 MHz, 320 ram,
*********************************************************

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From: Andy on 03/12/2007
I've had this problem on two occasions, and pretty nasty it can be.
As the computer cannot 'find' your HD, it tries to boot elsewhere... and that's where the problem lies.
In the meantime the HD 'clicks' and sounds as if it's all gone horribly wrong.

One of these solutions should work:

F2 on startup and revert back to default settings on BIOS.
F2 on startup and disable Network boot
Remove battery.
Remove HD and reseat.
Remove RAM and reseat.

I just performed all of these with no luck, so then I tried to boot from the CD drive. Interestingly I used an old Windows Word disk... amazingly the machine started normally.

Take time on this one you should get round it.

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From: hp omnibook xe 4500 on 03/11/2007
I have an hp omnibook xe 4500 (old) laptop pc whitout a Hard drive.
I tried to boot it first with a linux live cd (ubuntu 6.10),and then with a windows xp cd, an get the error message "PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable" and then: "Operating system not found". It still can boot on floppy disks. I tried to set the BIOS boot order in different ways, but i get te same error. then I opened the damn laptop, and connected again the optical drive, and assembled it, but it still not work.

please help!

sorry, my english is not wery good...

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From: Al on 03/09/2007
Guess what,

I removed the HDD and after putting back, I got the error pxe-e61: I thought my HDD failed or the motherboard failed, but by chance I pushed the HDD into the slot with a bit more force and kaboom, my laptop regained conciousness. So, in my case it was as simple as the HDD not being properly secured into the slot.

Al

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From: Jason on 03/07/2007
hi im getting the problem:
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
Please insert a bootdisk or something
what can i do? It is a Gericom laptop.
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From: Dave on 03/07/2007
I had the same message when I tried to boot a machine I was repairing. When I went into the setup, I could not make any changes, and the only boot device listed was the PXE. It ended up being a CMOS battery failure. I didn't suspect this right away because the machine is only a couple years old.
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From: Peterb on 03/03/2007
I am building a completely new pc with no OS on my new SATA disk, and received the message as below..
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

I could not get into the BIOS at all.

Simple answer was nothing to do with cables.
Simply remove the SATA disk from the system, and add a bootable HDD as primary and CD drive as slave.
On bootup, you can then enter the BIOS and change the boot order 1.CD, 2.HDD, and also remove the reference to the Nvidia test.

Once this is done, you will be able to remove your boot drive, replace your new SATA drive, out a Windows XP or similar in the CD drive, and reboot.
You will then be prompted to install the new OS.

Hope this assists someone....

Peter

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From: Reuben on 03/03/2007
I had the operating system not found problem - I read these posts and had tried most of the things that were suggested. However, when I took out the battery and put it back in it suddenly fixed the problem! I am amazed - I wish I had tried that before reinstalling the system with the recovery discs!
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From: Lurker on 03/01/2007
Too many people to thank in this thread, but I don't have any system setup mentioned and still managed to fix my problem by reading this thread and trying a combonation of things. Nothing to do with hardware, just bios and setup options (had to turn intargrated perifs to S-ata only) plus a few other setting changes and it fixed it!

Ha, now I just wonder how after 8 months of it working great that it got changed to make me have to do this! Thanks for all the help.

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From: Glenn on 02/27/2007
First of all thanks for all the advice everyone gave. I had the same error and after re-setting somethings in the bios in got past everything until it got to the welcome screen. It stalled for awhile then got the desktop but no icons ever came on. I did ctrl/alt/del and task manager came up so I tried to restart from there with no luck. Should I re-install the operating system?

Thank You

P.S. your responses are appreciated sincerely

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From: Noel on 02/25/2007
Just had this problem with my PC. I swapped floppy cables (because my old pc has a funky cable and wanted to put it in my flash new case), no other changes whatsoever. Attempted to boot up and received the PXE-E61 error, went into bios on next boot and looked the boot sequence. I noticed that my 2nd hard drive (just data) had moved into position 1 and my primary xp disk moved to position 2. Fucking wierd! anyway reset the boot sequence and everything was ok.
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From: Mike on 02/20/2007
I had this problem (PXE-E61 and PXE-M0F) on my Dell laptop. The problem was the BIOS was configured to boot the floppy first (which did not exist), and the NIC second (but the ethernet was unplugged). I entered the BIOS and changed the boot order to have the CD first, hard drive second, USB third, NIC fourth and floppy fifth.

This fixed my problem.

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From: tim on 02/20/2007
I was having this same problem on my HP laptop. I got the whole 'media test failure check cable' error, so I tried to reseat the RAM, HD, video, and sound cards. I also took out the battery and replaced it. When I then tried to boot up again, I get an 'Operating System Not Found' error message briefly flashing repeatedly on the screen. Have I inadvertently killed my computer? Is it possible that while taking out all the memories, I didn't push the hard drive back in correctly? I'm thinking that I can use the XP recovery disk to re-install the OS but I can't find the disk at the moment. Does anybody have any other thoughts on ideas I could try?

Tim

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From: Relic on 02/19/2007
Check your XP disk. If there is a bad read, it'll never get past. The PXE, is actually just a lanboot. If you plug in your LAN cable you will get a strang DHCP boot, it'll look like it's trying to boot off the lan. I think it'll solve most of your errors to just get a new disk, and disable your lan boot if you can. re-seating RAM/Hard disk will rarely solve the issue unless you've done something to harm your machine to begin with. (It's not a 'cable' inside of your computer, it's a network cable, that's why it's a PXE error, not IDE, or ATA)

-Relic

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From: Pete on 02/19/2007
Once the format reload was completed I had to remove the jumper and it continues to work fine.
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From: Pete on 02/18/2007
Also had the same problem. The hard drive in my compaq laptop died so i replaced it with another. Came up with the error stated below but i couldn't even acces the bios. I finally found the resolution. The old hard drive had a jumper on the back telling it wether it was master or slave, however the new one did not. I moved the jumper from the old hard drive to the new one and it now works perfectly. Happy Days!
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From: ampny on 02/14/2007
I have the same problem on my Acer Aspire 2010. I added a new HD and restore it from the original Acer disks. Get the PXE errors and have checked the BIOS and can confirm the network boot is off and it's set to boot from the HD.
I know the HD is working because I can boot from a CD(EBR Commander) and see all the files and have run diagnotic programs to confirm the disk is fine.
So what's next? I can't figure out how to get further into the bios since it seems to be a shell program that doesn't let me check if the IDE 0 is correct.
Any ideas?????
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From: Miyu on 02/13/2007
I think i had the same problems as everyone here and i've tried every single thing that i know of but nothing worked.
And just like all of u it's

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM -___-

im really worried that im gonna have to reprogram the system and lose all my files... -____- please help. Thank u ^-^

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From: John on 02/12/2007
Clyde - I'm having the exact same problem as you on a HP DV1000. Did you happen to resolve this issue?
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From: milk on 02/11/2007
replug all of your cables back in. it should work
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From: Edward on 02/11/2007
I had this problem and solved it after trying many frustrating and wrong ways. in my case this is what I did:
I have a DFI Infinity 975X/G which has an extremely complicated bios (well not so much complicated just lots of it)
I went into the BIOS and then 'Integrated Peripherals' and then to 'On-Chip Serial ATA'. This was set to SATA only - probably me but cant remember.
I simply changed it to 'Auto' and hey presto, it worked.
Hope this helps someone.
best wishes all
Ed
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From: Chris on 02/10/2007
Regarding the post from Fiona on 11/15/2006

Your suggestion worked perfectly!!! THANK YOU !!! so much.

I have a fairly big 64 bit system, with dual Operton processors and two hard-drives. One hard drive has winxp 64, and the other has Vista Ultimate 64 (I'm an MSDN suscriber). Anyways when I want to run one over the other I just unplug one harddrive and plug the power supply and SATA cable into the other hard-drive. (I'm too poor for a removable hard drive tray). So everything has been working fine until last night when I booted up the Vista HD. And I got that error. My WinXPx64 HD wouldn't boot up either.

So I followed Fiona's advice and went and looked at the boot sequence. My hard-drive wasn't there at all!!! It was on a disabled list. So I put it back on the list as #1, and everything has now worked just fine.

However now I am wondering what kicked my HD off the bios bootup list... That is mysterious. I don't think it could have been Vista since I've been running it flawlessly for about 2 weeks now.

Chris J.

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From: Barry on 02/08/2007
I have the same prob with a compac. I removed the mem card, the hard drive, CD and battery tried multiple combinations and same each time. (including all possable bios selections as well as the default. I also got a new hard drive, put it in my other laptop, installed windows on it and transfered it back to the problem laptop. Still same no boot. PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
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From: ThereIsNoSpoon on 02/07/2007
Just wanted to say thanks for the quality posts, descriptive complaints and insightful work-arounds. I figured I was porked before reading here, but then their was hope. I saw some fantastic troubleshooting tips here and learned a bunch, even if my HD is still as dead as it was before this blog. LOL I pretty much knew when it said OS not found (after PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable), instead of NTloader not found... I've reseated RAM a million times and a ton of cards, but never a HD. Good thinking, though. Especially the post from Fionna in November '06.
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From: Michele on 02/06/2007
Big "thank you" to everyone who posted how they solved this problem or what they tried to fix it! So this morning I flipped my Armada E500 over, removed the cover to the RAM bay, and found one of my memory sticks was not fully seated in the socket - how did that happen, all of a sudden after 2 years of sitting on a desk?! I pushed it back into place - and it worked. I can boot to CD and away I go.
Michele
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From: Candice on 02/05/2007
I am having this same error message pop up. i have tried all of your suggestions with out any progress. It started when i replaced the top cover and lcd of my compaq presario. i put everything back together and the new screen works great, but still the error message. it also doesn't dectect my hard drive. it was working fine before i put the new screen on... i think there is an issue with the power supply to the HDD. or did i fry the Hdd?

any ideas will be MUCH appreciated!!!

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From: Candice on 02/05/2007
I am having this same error message pop up. i have tried all of your suggestions with out any progress. It started when i replaced the top cover and lcd of my compaq presario. i put everything back together and the new screen works great, but still the error message. it also doesn't dectect my hard drive. it was working fine before i put the new screen on... i think there is an issue with the power supply to the HDD. or did i fry the Hdd?

any ideas will be MUCH appreciated!!!

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From: Max on 01/31/2007
I had the same problem, I just took out an hard disk and put it back. Now it seems it works, I can't see that error any longer , I'm installing the operating system.

Bye,
Max

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From: Clyde on 01/28/2007
Have an hp pavilion DV1000.
The PXE-E61 and PXE-M0F errors recycle every few seconds when trying to boot up.
I think I've tried all suggestions. (1) took out HD and batteries, blew out and reseated, (2) took out battery and held down power button (after a few seconds the laptop turns itself off so can't hold for one minute), (3) reset BIOS (I can't see how to rearrange order) to factory order (floppy, CD-drive, hard disk, and network adaptor), (4) did the hard drive diagnostic "self-test" and it comes back with the result that there is "No IDE Device".
Should this lead me to conclude the hard drive is bad?
Should I try to reboot using a boot-up disk and hope it corrects itself?
If I need a new HD, is it easy enough to self install or should I take it to someone with more tech savvy than I possess?
Great thread on this error. Hope someone can help me and thanks to all who have written so far.
Clyde
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From: gill on 01/27/2007
I had the PXE-E61 / PXE-MOF problem, also was getting extraction error at 77% when running product recovery (toshiba satelitte)after a few months of it gathering dust i gave it one last try to fix it.

Instead of trying the PRDisks, i tried installing xp pro from another disk.. IT WORKED!!


Hope this helps someone

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From: DENNYS on 01/25/2007
I got the same error message,my laptop dell 1100 inspiron start up the system something and something not,when the computer do not start up the system is because the bios do not detect the hard drive,but the hard drive is good I tested the hard drive in other laptop,I believe is the hard drive controller is faulty.what do you think,any suggestion on hard drive controllers.
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From: Harry on 01/23/2007
My problem first started just before christmas, I left it over the holidays, kept retrying, I checked in setup and the hard drive was the primary boot. With me I think there may have been an actual problem with the hard drive as it was making a loud clicking clunking sound. I took the drive out and put it back but still nothing so I bought a new hard drive, didn't really mind as this one is A LOT better anyway. Now I've got this new drive I was planning on switching it to boot from CD and installing windows on the new HD, but now I can't get into the setup. This bug is slowly getting worse. AARRRRGGGGGHHHHH
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From: James on 01/21/2007
I just want to say thanks! To those that take the time to post and answer these questions. I had this smae problem my computer would star up with the same ditti.... A Toshiba Satellite Laptop... THe error occured during a trip during Christmas but self resloved. After a trip on a mtg yesterday, got the codes on start-up...So after Googling the codes I came to this sight... Popped out the Battery and hard drive, blew them w/ compressed air popped them in and they started right up. Took about 10 minutes from start to finish and I was concerned that I was facing a $300 bill to replace a motherboard.

Thanks to those that provide input!

James

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From: LUX on 01/20/2007
FIXES IN 74 SECONDS !!!
Open the back of your notebook and remove your hard drive, blow some air duster and plug the hard drive again.. Just bad connection. I hope it works for someone else!!!

LUX

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From: dan on 01/19/2007
yeah, same prob spilled coffe... lol this sucks
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From: Mike on 01/19/2007
I have the same problem, but have tipped a mug of coffee over the keys of the laptop. Is there any hop????

Worried user

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From: cycocid on 01/18/2007
I got same problem and easily fixed it by going into BIOS and setting defaults, works fine now.
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From: Susan on 01/18/2007
Thankfully, the solution that worked for us was simply removing the battery and harddrive and reseating them as someone else suggested. We immediately go a clean boot and have had no problems since.
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From: sloughboy on 01/16/2007
In our case this was rectified by simply removing and replacing the hard drive and battery. Sounds stupid, but infact it was purely a physical issue that caused this issue and error message for us.

Laptops are more fragile than we sometimes expect.

Sloughboy

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From: veronica on 01/15/2007
To Judi, seems like yours is a registry issue; go to the windows site and look up how to fix the registry, you use the repair console, a long and grueling process but it lets you repair after you go and fix it, go into safe mode and a lot more..
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From: Audrey on 01/09/2007
solution from 12/28/06 worked like a charm!
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From: Frank on 01/08/2007
i had the same problem of pxe-e61 and pxe-m0f errors starting up. it occured about a week after installing a verizon pci card. To install the pci on my desktop i purchased a pci-pcmia adapter. it worked for about a week and then this occured. My quick fix was to disable the usb and lan adapter in bios then reinstall windows using repair. i then reinstalled everything (usb and lan adapter) and its been working fine for a month. think it was just a bad driver that sent my harddrive searching.
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From: Ben on 01/04/2007
Place i got it from told me to update my BIOS. Now i just gotta figure out how to do that....
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From: sd on 01/04/2007
Hello,
i had the problem
"pxe-e61:meida text failure, check cable
pxe-m0f: exiting nvidia boot agent"

on my AMD PC.
so i try every thing that you wrote here.
boot priorty and disabling stuff..
repair from XP cd..
then i try to reinstall windows and i couldnt.
so i disabled my IDE RAID, from the addvanced BIOS option.
and I manage to install the windows again...
now when i boot i got 2 option of OS , they are the same
"windows pro."

one is working and with my files from old system. (some folder: access deinied)

the other one show me this error:
windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
could not read from the selected boot disk.
check boot path and disk hard ware.

plz help me solve it and gain access to my old OS to get all my files out.

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From: Ben on 01/04/2007
I have disabled the Lan and now all i am getting is DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.

Contact me on ben-ben_69@hotmail.com if you can help me :D

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From: Ben on 01/03/2007
Smae PXE-E61: Media blah blah as all of you. Bought a brand new system and i'm trying to install windows xp. Help please!
I am trying other people's results so hopefully i can fix it.

With the boot priority i am getting no HD.

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From: kaveh on 01/03/2007
yes, I have exactly the same problem! any idea? (I try all solutions in this post but no result :((

help me please!

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From: Judi on 12/28/2006
Responding to my own post. What finally worked was: Took out the battery. With the battery out, held down the power button for one minute. Put battery back in, rebooted. The blank screen with the blinking cursor was still there. I double checked in the BIOS, and made sure the hard drive was there and it was the 1st in line to boot from. I left the computer with the cursor blinking and did other things. About 15 minutes later, it started re-installing windows and asked for the install disc! It went through the motions of installing, asked all the questions, rebooted, asked for application disc, did that, and everything is back up and running. I have no idea
what actauuly worked. I do know I wasted $200 on a new hard drive if any one wants to buy one cheap :)

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From: Judi on 12/27/2006
I have tried everything- looking for more advice. I replaced the hard drive, disabled the LAN booting, reset the BIOS, took the whole dang thing apart and cleaned it, took out the battery, etc etc. Now the media test PXE thing is gone, but I get just a blank screen with a blinking curser upon startup. I boot from disc, try to reinstall operating system, and it gets to a point about 90%, and hangs up and goes back to the install windows screen?!?! Where it gives me the choice to "R" for repair, or install. I've tried both, neither work. I've had a tech look at it, I've spent hours with clueless support techs, and I'm just baffled. It's like it wants to work, it just won't! I'm lucky in that all of my files were on my PC so I've lost nothing, but I'm also a non-profit organization which really can't afford a new laptop. Any any advice would be appreciated. Preferrably in non-geek :) I'm not exactely computer proficient! Thank you so much
basaltkids@comcast.net
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From: Peter on 12/27/2006
Thanks all, especially Fiona for the posts.

I got a similar message on an old Dell Optiplex I'm running (no recent hw or bios changes done). Found this forum/string by googling pxe-mdf. Checked my boot sequence as suggested...neither hd was listed as an option. Opened the case and found the controller cable had become unseated. Works again great. Thanks all.

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From: Jan on 12/23/2006
The BIOS boot order is part of the problem with the error message
"PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable"

I have a neighbor's computer to rebuild and this was my first bootup testing a new hard drive. I got the error message and tried removing and reseating my cables, next I tried BIOS and found the old BIOS was not set properly to include half of the boot sequence; fixed that.

To shorten the story, it finally dawned on me that the old computer was using the newer "CS Cable" system vs IDE Master/Slave settings. That fixed my problem and the boot was successful.

In short...
check cables connections,
Jumper on hard drive for Master/Slave/CS settings,
BIOS settings for boot order
AND detect any new drive 0 in BIOS. (be sure it's working, too.)

Jan

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From: Iceman on 12/13/2006
Great teamwork people
I was adding a second HDD and got the famous error message

Now 25 minutes later I found out that setting my BIOS to default fixed the problem. all thanks to you

C ja o da street

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From: James on 12/12/2006
Here's alittle variation of the similiar problem.

My laptop randomly decided it didn't want to boot up anymore and gave me that error message. PXE-something something.

Now I have another laptop availible. I plugged the other laptop's harddrive into my original laptop and it booted up fine. I plugged my original computer's harddrive into my other laptop and it won't boot up.

Now is there any chance at all that my harddrive is NOT doomed?

Also, right when it crashed, since my original laptop can hold 2 HDs, I was able to plug in my original harddrive as a secondary HD(slave) and boot up my computer with my other laptop's HD(master). It worked a few times, but recently, I haven't beenable to get it to work for me. Anyone know why?

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From: ginz on 12/07/2006
My friend dropped her laptop. Booting and loading OS was spotty. Sometimes it would go..most times it wouldn't. Often the PXE message would come up. Disabled network card in boot order but all that did was eliminate the message. Sometimes the boot cursor just sat there on an empty black screen, blinking.

Installed new HDD with no success. Figured the only thing to do was disassemble the laptop and check whatever connections I could. Put it all back together..it booted and has been running just fine.

Laptops can be tricky to pull apart...just because there's no evident way to do so except for a few screws on the bottom. Go to the manufacturers website to see if there's any documentation that will assist you in the procedure. I found some excellent info at HP. Try to resist buying a CD or paying for the very same info in .pdf form on Ebay. Work slowly and carefully..make notes or sketches if you have to. There's nothing to be afraid of. She might have taken it to some unscrupulous repair shop and been told it needs a new mobo..or any number of things.

Good luck.

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From: craghopper on 12/02/2006
A quick tip:

I just had this problem and the reason was that my Windows partion wasn't bootable. If you use a program that will let you change the active partition on the drive and set your windows partition as the bootable (active) one, it worked for me. Now my girlfriend is going to love me and i can give her this Laptop back, finally!

Not sure if this will apply until you can 'see' your harddrive but thought it worth mentioning.

Good luck,
CH

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From: Sandi on 11/30/2006
I checked my Bios and Bob's my Uncle...No HD, I am sick, how can I get my info off my HD??
I was originally getting the same error message !st time and disabled the LAN boot as suggested, and that did get rid of that message.. but now I get the message “cannot find operating system. This laptop has been running great till now and I can hear the HD turning, it sounds like it is stuck in a loop.. and the error message keeps looping as well?? Any ideas would be appreciated...??
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From: Fiona on 11/15/2006
I just wanted to let you all know that when you recieve any kind of error referring to a pxe error this is caused because... yes... it the system is trying to boot off the network boot.

Now for the reason this happens will help you understand where your problems are.

As everyone has figured out by now... you get this error when the network card is set in the boot priority (usually set as the 4th device). To get rid of this error you simply take it out of the boot priority right? Right, it will get rid of that error and give you a new one that will say something along the lines of no o/s found, or can't find o/s. The reason is that it the system is not seeing either the bootable cd, if there is no o/s on the hard drive, or, if there is an operating system on the hard drive and you are getting this error there is a problem with the hard drive.


REASON:

When you get a pxe error, unless you are trying to boot off the network, this error is because it has gone through all the other boot devices listed and didn't find anything and therefore it ended up looking at this device as a last resort and hence the error.

SOLUTIONS:
If this is a system that you have just put together, check your cables, jumpers, and your drive.

If this is a system that has an o/s on the hdd and this is a new problem and you recently have not done any work on the hardware (inside the case) and you get this error. Go into the bios and look for Master/ IDE 0 and I'll guarantee you will be looking at a display that states "NONE" and Bob's your Uncle.

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From: Grampa big cheese on 11/14/2006
I assembled my 2nd pc, with a Intel MB and network card, to give to my daughter. I received the same message as Rajesh. I went into BIOS, disabled the Lan in boot device sequence-PROBLEM SOLVED, THANKS MARTIN
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From: Miicky on 11/14/2006
Just check cables to your ODD and make sure that you ODD is set to boot first in your BIOS.

This problem is only minnor.

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From: Martin on 11/10/2006
I had this problem last night building a new PC.

I am using:

MSI P965 Platinum, P965, Socket-775
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz Socket

and kept getting the same message when trying to boot from CD to install XP.

Reading some other forums I discovered that the MSI board appears to have an onboard Ethernet controller which over-rides the BIOS boot sequence.

Basically it was trying to boot from the LAN first, even though no cable attached. It subsequently seemed to ignore the CD/DVD drives and tried to boot from the empty hard disk???

I then noticed the message during boot to press SHIFT + F10 to configure the controller. I did this and was able to disable this device from the boot sequence.

All worked perfectly after that!!!

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From: Matt on 11/10/2006
Hello,
I have the PXE-E61: Media test failure problem as well accept a few variations.

NVIDIA Boot Agent, PXE-2.0 (build 082 V1.82)
Copyright (C) 2001 NVIDIA Corporation
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-EM0F: Exiting, NVIDIA Boot Agent.
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER


That is what comes up so if anyone could help me out that would be great.

So far I tried "hitting it" and changing the bios so but I believe I might have done the bios thing incorrectly if that is even the solution


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From: kasim on 11/10/2006
In my Toshiba laptop:
- I disabled the network boot in BIOS.
- I formatted the hard disk in another computer.
- I installed XP again and it seems to be working fine at the moment.
kasim
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From: misterno on 11/08/2006
well i got the PXE-E61 error on a compaq presario 2500 (after change the HDD, old was broke)
i tried all said here ... no way
i try another hdd ... and it works fine ... i dont understand why ...
the 2 HDD works fine on other computer ...
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From: Steve on 11/06/2006
wow i am having this same problem what can i do and i dont really know how to take it all apart my hp says Pxe-e61 meadia test failure check cable then says boot device and has hard drive cd-rom/dvd diskette a and internal lan every one i click i get the same thing HELP PLZ!!!!!!!!!!!
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From: DaveH on 11/02/2006
I resolved this problem on my machine!
Loading bios defaults reset the settings and by default IDE Raid is enabled. I disabled it now it sees my SATA boot drive and stars up OK.
Hope this helps someone.

Kind regards,
Dave

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From: Jack on 10/28/2006
You can rescue data from a laptop HDD by connecting it to a desktop system, get a IDE to laptop drive adaptor, or buy one of those 2.5" USB drive enclosures.
GET YOUR IMPORTANT DATA OFF NOW!
A "live CD" is very handy to have around, download "ubuntu" (Linux). It's a bootable CD that has a very windows like GUI and enough utilities to get you access to your data and network connections.
Clear your CMOS back to factory defaults and/or remove the CMOS battery for a while, like a hour.
Think of the basics, if you can get into BIOS then your graphics card (or onboard chip) is at least working at a low res.
Next is the boot from the HDD. If that's screwed up you should be able to still boot from CD or USB. Remove the HDD and try again as a test. Remember that booting from HDD is simply reading the first sector and running the code, if that's messed up then you get nothing.
Last ditch thing to do is update or re-write your BIOS, see your factory site for info. This may be due to the new viruses that can write to your BIOS (or try to).

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From: Bob on 10/27/2006
I think your Motherboard is toast. I'm trying to remedy the PXE-E61 message on a Compaq V2306US. I replaced the HDD and still got the message. I reinstalled the old drive and was able to get into Windows XP. I Defrag'ed the drive and ran Check Disk with no errors. After poking around in Windows the system shut down and hasn't come back to life since. Most likely it the Disk Controller on the motherboard. I went to Best Buy and asked how much it would likely cost to repair. We were told about $129 if it can be fixed on site and god knows how much if it had to be sent out. Since the laptop cost about $650 new it probably isn't worth it. A final note... I bought a NexStar 2 1/2" hard drive enclosure at Fry's for $20 and put the old drive in it. Plugged it into my desktop computer and was able to retrieve all my files from the HD. Quick and easy.
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From: Leon on 10/26/2006
Home Built System.
Gets The PXE-E61
And The PXE-M0F
I was in the middle of a conversation and the unit died.
Attempted 3 retries all dropped, system sees everything fine but just drops to those errors and refuses to boot to windows.
Any Suggestions? reply to:slundberg AT ikano.com thanks.
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From: Steve on 10/26/2006
PSE-E61 No Media Found Check Cables.
PXE-M0F no sure what that is. And Yea I have the nvidia Boot agent as well.

I yanked the usbs. Pulled the cables and only hooked up the IDE HDD and reset the memory I did reset teh system but haven't reset the cmos battery yet. WHICH might be teh issue.... not sure wil have to test that theory out when I get back from the store. Its just so dang frustrating !

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From: Tan on 10/26/2006
Hi, i am facing some problems, hope someone can help me with it

when i on my laptop, it just show me this black screen with these words:

For Realtek RTL8139 (A/B/C) RTL8130.....

PXE_E61 : Media test failure, check cable
PXE_M0f : Exiting PXE ROM

Anyone can help me with this problem?

Please email me at tanyongpin@hotmail.com

Thank you.

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From: Roni on 10/25/2006
I have a compaq presario r3000 with an error message. PXE-e61:media test failure, check cables. Last night I had to do ctrl-alt-del to shut down. Got up this morning turned on laptop and nothing but a black screen. Shut down and went to the bios utility pressed F10 to load defaults F9 to save and still that black screen. Tried to reboot from xp operating cd and nothing. Took out the battery and the memory module and still nothing. Performed the hdtest and both the short test and long test passed. Tried again to load defaults and nothing. After several times doing the reset the bios I called compaq. The tech sent me an email with instruction to download windows server 2003 resouce kit. Said this would work. That was a joke still nothing. That cd won't even load. Called them back and told them that previous resoulation did not work. So they told me that it sounds like my hard drive is not getting a good connection. Went and bought a new hard drive this evening and still nothing. But that black screen with the flashing cursor. When I try to start up with cd......press any key to continue it act like it wants to load from the cd but it stops responding. I've also tried every suggestion and comment that everyone here has posted and still that lovely black screen. I have disabled the network adapter and nothing. Ran another HDD self-test and both passed again. I have so much stuff on this laptop that I cannot loose. If anyone has a solution that will work PLEASE EMAIL ME at andnoutlaw@cox.net
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From: Drew E Kilsby on 10/25/2006
I too am having this problem.

Im working with:
MSI 975x Platinum PowerUp Edition
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Maxor SATAII HDD

I get the following message on startup:
Intel(R) Boot Agent GE v1.2.36
Copyright (C) 1997-2005, Intel Corporation

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent.
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

I know the disc works because it works on my other system, and i have tried everything i can think of, unplugging usb devices, disconnecting/reconnecting the HDD, removing/reinstalling the memory, hitting reset on the motherboard, changing boot sequences, and each time the same message comes up.
I've exhausted all my knowledge, can anyone help?

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From: Mike on 10/20/2006
What i did to fix it.

Same problem. Did everything that was mentioned on here before actually re-seating the memore and hdd and "cleaning" it.

That actually worked, so let that be your first step.

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From: Lisa on 10/20/2006
I have a Gateway computer I think the motherboard is Intel Celeron when I go into the BIOS it says Intel Base Code PXE.2.0 it also says Intel boot agent verison 4.0.14 when I boot it up I am getting the same message I have read on here PXE-E61 I have tried to set it back to the factory setting I have tried to plug everything in again I have changed the way it boots up. I see some people talk about LAN and I don't see that on my computer I have read things that said I need to disable the PXE and I don't see that on my computer also I saw things on reset have no idea where that is and I saw people say things about battery have no idea where that is can anybody help.
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From: Dude on 10/19/2006
I to have the same problem at boot up.
My XP machine froze at the boot.
SO I used Windows restore from the XP disc
It will only work on The Full XP version with your KEY #

Now It boots... but the error is still in the registery boot.
Everything runs

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From: Kevin on 10/12/2006
Hi all,

I too have recently built my first computer and during the boot sequence experienced the PXE-E61 Boot Agent error. I corrected the error by entering the Advanced BIOS features, selecting Boot Sequence and then disabling the NVIDIA Boot Agent. F10 to save and have not had problems since. I am using an MS7260 Mainboard.

Good luck!

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From: Mark on 10/09/2006
I have a desktop, it will run for hours without a problem but if I walk away for 15 minutes my screen goes black and I get the following error message:
Intel Base Code PXE-2.1
PXE-E61 - Media Test Failure
PXE-MOF - Existing Intel PXE-Rom
Boot Failure: System Halted

Can anyone help me with this problem

mefannon@bellsouth.net

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From: Thomas S on 10/08/2006
This thread is great!!!

Had my Pavilion do the same after a long motorcycle trip.

Pulled the hard drive out and pushed it back in and IT WORKED!!!

Thanks a lot everyone for posting your experiences.

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From: Frank on 09/29/2006
Some other things to think about:
Take out all HDD and USB devices and put them in one at a time, boot testing each one to see if one has a problem, or the others are causing problems with a good working one.
CMOS batteries don't last forever.
Reset CMOS manually if you have a motherboard jumper.
Change BIOS back to factory default and go from there (clearing CMOS should do that but you never know).
If booting from USB or other connector, could it have too much use plugging in and out or bending the connector? USB ports are just soldered to a circuit board and too much wiggling can cause the connections to go bad. Traces on the circuit board can easily break.
Did some idiot stuff gum in your USB connector?
If you get it to boot, leave it on and get a UPS so it never goes off for a power outage!

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From: Adrian on 09/29/2006
Hi everyone,

Today I got the PXE-E61 error you have all experienced.
On my desktop PC, I have 2 SATA hdds (one of which has Windows XP installed) and an IDE HDD.
I tried to install a third SATA drive, which is when the error appeared. However, the problem persisted even after I disconnected the drive again.
I read through this thread and tried most of the suggested solutions:
- Disable network ports in bios
- change boot order
- reset bios
- reseat ram modules
- reseat ALL ide/sata cables
Then I set Boot from CD as the first boot option. (previously, I had ALWAYS used HDD, HDD, HDD)
- fixboot from recovery console
- CHKDSK from recovery console

Checkdisk reported that there was an error on my HDD. Understandably, I was bummed, thinking my disk had died. However, something enexplainable happened. When I quit the recovery console and rebooted (with WINXP cd still in the drive), I did nothing at the 'boot from cd' prompt, and the system then continued to actually boot from HDD! Furthermore, this ONLY works when I have a bootable cd in the drive (even though I don't actually end up booting it). If I remove boot from CD from the boot order again, my system stops working.
What could be causing this??? Or am I stuck with having my WINXP cd in the drive every time I want to boot, until my next format?

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From: Andrew R. on 09/28/2006
This issue arose on my Toshiba M200 Tablet Pc, the one that I use everyday and write ALL of my lecture notes on and run ALL of my programs and as everyone knows in university, your laptop is your life. Sad to say I had this error (most likely due jostling in my backpack and the fact that it was recently dropped). Unfortunately, all the suggestions given from others about the bios and disabling and all that whooey did absolutely nothing to help me, I supposed that the hard drive was just loose. I went to the computer repair shop and they told me the fees that would incur for them to diagnose (which I already did) and fix it (which I thought I could do) In the end all I did was pull out the hard drive, make sure verything was straight and put it back in. Now everything is peachy and I am writing this message on my lappy. 4.0 GPA here I come.
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From: D on 09/27/2006
i had the same problem with a presario 2100, with 2 hard disk, it does works when you put the memory out and in, if it doesnt work, that means the hd is burnt.

thx

D.

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From: Jason on 09/26/2006
I had the same problem. I was installing 2 CD-ROM and failed to set the second on as slave. Pulled it up, set the jumper to slave, and everything was fixed.
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From: Anakin on 09/22/2006
For Toshiba Satellite M70-192!!!

Error:
Intel Base-Code, PXE-2.1 (build 083)
Copyright (C) 1997-2001, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

Fixing:
enter bios - hit F9 (factory restore settings) - save and exit.

Problem solved!!!

yes it is true: BIOS is trying to boot from the network card.
good luck!

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From: L on 09/20/2006
I had been having the same problem on IBM ThinkPad R51e. I read all the postings and had been changing boot order, disabling USB boot, and plugging in different USB devices -- that had been working on 2nd or 3rd reboot for 2 weeks until today. Ejected the hard drive and saw 2 outside and one inside pins bent and discovered the screw was missing. It had probably been jostling each night in transport and finally became too bad today. The pins are straightened and the screw replaced -- hopefully that will resolve the daily "OS not found" madness.
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From: Isaac on 09/14/2006
What is happening to most people who receive this message is that your Hard Drive has died. The system is not seeing a Hard drive so the system is trying to boot to the NIC. Most systems these days have a either a diagnostic disk or diagnostics built into your bios that can test the Hard Drive. Good Luck
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From: Jan on 09/06/2006
I had the same problem on my compaq EN p866
After the bios upgrade was the problem solved.
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From: Moe on 09/02/2006
Error on bootup
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

I for some dang reason am unable to access bios, i press F1 and bios just don't come up i have a IBM S51 machine its 3.2 with 1gig of ram i just changed the hard drive with 250gb for some odd reason i just cannot go to bios i cannot get the PC to boot from CD/DVD rom.
Please help
Please don't tell me to try F12 or Del key to go to setup. F1 is setup for this machine i just press and press and nothing when the computer boots up to windows keyboard works fine so i know its not the keyboard as well.
Thanks

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From: Drew on 09/01/2006
I too am performing my first build and experienced the "Media failure error". After reading a few responses on this page, I

1) shut down the pc
2) Uninstalled/reinstalled my memory (RAM)
3) rebooted the system and went to BIOS just to check that everything was still recognized.
4) Exited BIOS, installed my win xp disc into the cdrom (which was first in my boot order) and shut down the system.
5) Waited a minute or so, and powered on the pc - the disc was recognized and all is well.

Hope this helps.

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From: Tasso on 09/01/2006
Hi Marie,
could you please repost a working URL for the DELL solution? I have a Dell Optiplex giving the same error message, but following your link only brings to the start of Dell's "Support Wizard". Not to any specific answer. I reinserted all memory modules. Nothing. I made sure all CDROM connections were fast. I took out the CMOS battery, waited 30 seconds, CMOS got reset, yet there's still the error message.
Thanks. -Tasso
****************************
From: Marie on 08/31/2006
If you have a DELL and running XP go to http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/searchresult?c=us&l=en&s=gen

and follow the instructions
****************************

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From: Marie on 08/31/2006
If you have a DELL and running XP go to http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/searchresult?c=us&l=en&s=gen

and follow the instructions

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From: PAn on 08/29/2006
I received the same error:
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

I figured that somehow the "Primary Master" setting in the CMOS is set to "Not Installed".

I have an Averatec 3200. Here is what I did:

1. Access Bios by pressing Delete key right after switching the computer on.
2. Enter Standard CMOS Set-up.
3. Set Primary to Auto by using the PgUp/PgDown keys.
4. Save and exit.

The start up proceded correctly after doing this.

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From: Christina on 08/26/2006
I had this same problem on my HP Pavillion Dv4000. When I booted I would get the error: Media Test Failure - Check Cable. I noticed after trying some of the many tips in this thread that my DVD rom would not open at all when I turned my laptop on. I opened the DVD Rewritable and booted the laptop up and it is working fine now. I can not get my laptop to bootup with the DVD Rewritable in. I get that error. Hopefully this will help someone else in fixing their laptop. I will need to get a new DVD Rewritable.
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From: Monique on 08/14/2006
I have the same problem, I have a HP Compaq Presario V2000. so, I called HP tech support (I've had my laptop for less than 1 year) and after a couple of directives from the tech he tells me my HD is bad and it will have to be replaced (arghhhh!). Now, mind you, this is the 2nd hard drive that's had to be replaced in less than 1 year and the tech tries to tell me that I may have used the laptop wrong!! Talk about insult to injury. I'm so easy on that laptop it's pathetic. Is it me? Can it be that a HP Compaq Presario is so fragile and delicate that plugging in the AC adapter to quickly may indeed ruin the HD? Trust me, I'm no technie, but I just can't imagine I'm to blame for the laptop HD crashing two times!
any support will help this distraught soul.
thank you
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From: Tan on 08/12/2006
Hi All,

I have been struggling with the same issue since a week, I almost thought my hard disk crashed, and I lost all hopes.

Then I tried to open the RAM module and unlugged it, cleaned the slots a bit and re-plugged the RAM, it worked !!!!!

Not sure how to explain this, but replugging the RAM worked, so i encourage you guys to try it out first, before doing anything else.

Cheers
-Tan

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From: gf0012-aust on 07/30/2006
PXE-61 fix for a Compaq iPaq

1a) Reset CMOS (recessed button above RAM slots)

1b) non critical change) Reseated CMOS battery. removed, cleaned contacts and reseated

1c) (non critical change) Replaced PC-100 RAM with PC-133 certified


Start Computer and hit F10 to go to BIOS

2) In BIOS, (advanced settings - NOT boot sequence settings) disable boot from network (F5 for the Compaq iPaq)

3a) change boot order to CD. USB then Hard Drive (L/R arrow keys)

3b) from boot sequence menu, disable Network Boot device (L/R arrow keys)

4a) Tested for non OS dependant drive presence with Acronis Disk Director CD Boot Utility

4b) Tested for non OS dependant drive presence with Maxtor MaxBlast CD Boot Utility

5) Repaired HDD MBR with MaxBlast

6) (non critical change) Optic cleaned CD with lens cleaning CD

7) set boot sequence to F9 (for user nomination of boot device at delayed start up)

8a) started comp with bootable CD - worked.
8b) started comp with HDD - worked.


(non critical change) After validation did a Firmware upgrade

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From: jett on 07/19/2006
Hey all...
was getting the media failure check line error
message and all I did to fix the problem was took out the memory
and just put it back in a few moments later...
works great again! hope that helps...
jett
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From: o_o; on 07/13/2006
I Hate you Jase. My friend is having a problem with this, yet everything we have tried has ended up the same. He is weary about trying to check the IDE cables on his laptop, can someone help us out? It's a HP Pavillion zv5000 and the same error screen keeps showing 'Pxe - Error 61' Help and thanks.
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From: amalr on 07/13/2006
hi all and thankss for every thing
i had the same problem
media test fail and I was not able to boot up my laptop

i Go to BIOS set up
to Disable boot from LAN but it did not wor; with me how can i Disable it my laptop is toshiba
plzzz help

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From: Gazment on 07/09/2006
My toshiba a75 s209 had the same error message cycling.
Follow this to resolve:

1) press f2 to enter setup while booting
2) go to boot device order tab
3) highlight network boot and hold shift+1

This disables the network booting and you should boot up with your harddrive.

I believe a virus is the cause of this or it may just be a program that reconfigured the way your computer starts up. In either case it seems to be an issue that stemmed from a network/internet condition.

Note: If this doesn't work try disableing everything except your harddrive in bios setup.

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From: Phil on 06/23/2006
Need help out there. I have a Dell Optiplex GX1 system. I've taken out the hard drive and installed a new one. I'm getting an PXE- E61 error...Media test failure, check cable. I'm not even able to install the new hard drive trying to get past this. Someone help please. Thank you
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From: Flipsy on 06/13/2006
Thanks so much....that fixed one of my errors, now I've got several more.

I can't get past 12% on chkdsk /r.

Does anyone know why the chkdsk hangs at that percentage....I hope it is not a bad hard drive. I also get an error message about "Unmountable_Boot_Volume."

Any help would be appreciated...thanks so much for the great advice on the PXE-E61 error......I disabled the network boot totally and no more message.

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From: janna on 06/11/2006
i don't know much about hardware, but i turned my dell desktop on the other day and got PXE-E53 and PXE-E61 error messages. based on msgs posted here i decided to use F2 to go into setup and change the order of boot files to drive A followed by drive 0. this fixed the problem immmediately, after 4 days of thinking the hard drive was dead. now it seems to be working perfectly. thanks for posting things here.
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From: Shawn on 05/30/2006
Help!! I repeately get the following error message

Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 3.0.04
Copyright (c) 1997-200, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
Pxe-mof: exiting intel Pxe rom.


I've changed the setings as many of you have instructed I really need my computer. And as of now I don't really have the money to get a pro to look at it so any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Email me @ Supafly4670@aol.com

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From: futurelight on 05/27/2006
I had the master and slave jumper problem as well (two drives set as master), fixed it, and reset the bios on my machine per the advice on the forums, and IT WORKS!!!! Thanks guys!
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From: Mathias on 05/18/2006
Hi all,

I have a laptop that won't boot anymore.

It's a laptop from a customer of mine so i don't know the laptops history...

I read here to disable the boot from lan, that fixed the media error but now he just gives me "NO OS found..." but i am sure there is an OS installed...

Any ideas?

Tnx in advance :)

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From: Monique on 05/16/2006
HI,

i have an IBM T43 that is only around 6 months old when my laptop was working perfectly until i opened a game that usually worked fine but it was taking a long time so i went off and did somthing else, when i came back the laptop had come up up witht he error. so i shut down. i then reebooted it and the error kept coming up so i kept on reebooting it. then after about 6 or 7 times when i shut down it made a beep like it usually does when i turn it off so it put my hopes up then i started it up again and there you go it was working fine.

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From: deepak on 05/06/2006
Hi

I had the same problem
media test fail and I was not able to boot up my laptop and the
hard drive was making lot of noise

What I did was :
Go to BIOS set up
Disable boot from LAN

That did the trick

Thanks a lot to all of you guys
This thread really healped me a lot

regards

Deepak

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From: Francis on 05/02/2006
I had my 2year old compaq presario 2100, and in one evening i was surprised when i poweron my laptop and ive got the following worst error i've ever experienced.
Argon PXE Boot agent V2.01 (BIOS integrated)
Pre Boot Execution Environment (PXE)
PXE-E61: Media Test failure, check cable
.........
OS not found
.........
Initializing MBA

Ive tried to check my LAN port but looks good, ive tried to unplugged and replugged my memory but still i have the error.

Ive entered the BIOS setup (by pressing F2) and ive changed the boot order as follows;
1. HD
2. CD ROM
3. Removable Device
4. Builtin LAN

But still i have the error when i've saved my BIOS setup. Ive changed again the setup where i put the CD ROM drive priority in order i can install the WinXP OS. But the installation could not proceed and there was a hard drive error even i select the disk partition option.

Please help me, or send me email francispal@yahoo.com

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From: Francis on 05/02/2006
I had my 2year old compaq presario 2100, and in one evening i was surprised when i poweron my laptop and ive got the following worst error i've ever experienced.
Argon PXE Boot agent V2.01 (BIOS integrated)
Pre Boot Execution Environment (PXE)
PXE-E61: Media Test failure, check cable
.........
OS not found
.........
Initializing MBA

Ive tried to check my LAN port but looks good, ive tried to unplugged and replugged my memory but still i have the error.

Ive entered the BIOS setup (by pressing F2) and ive changed the boot order as follows;
1. HD
2. CD ROM
3. Removable Device
4. Builtin LAN

But still i have the error when i've saved my BIOS setup. Ive changed again the setup where i put the CD ROM drive priority in order i can install the WinXP OS. But the installation could not proceed and there was a hard drive error even i select the disk partition option.

Please help me, or send me email francispal@yahoo.com

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From: Francis on 05/02/2006
I had my 2year old compaq presario 2100, and in one evening i was surprised when i poweron my laptop and ive got the following worst error i've ever experienced.

Argon PXE Boot agent V2.01 (BIOS integrated)
Pre Boot Execution Environment (PXE)
PXE-E61: Media Test failure, check cable
.........
OS not found
.........
Initializing MBA

Ive tried to check my LAN port but looks good, ive tried to unplugged and replugged my memory but still i have the error.

Ive entered the BIOS setup (by pressing F2) and ive changed the boot order as follows;
1. HD
2. CD ROM
3. Removable Device
4. Builtin LAN

But still i have the error when i've saved my BIOS setup. Ive changed again the setup where i put the CD ROM drive priority in order i can install the WinXP OS. But the installation could not proceed and there was a hard drive error even i select the disk partition option.

Please help me, or send me email francispal@yahoo.com

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From: David on 04/25/2006
I installed Norton GoBack on a laptop and on rebooting, after installation, I got this problem. It appears GoBack won't work if there is a 'hidden' restore partition on the drive. Fortunately I was able to boot up from a CD which allowed me to get into Windows and disable, then remove GoBack.

In my case there is no problem at all with the HDD.

Rather than a hardware issue, have you maybe installed anything similar that could be causing the error message?

David

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From: Marius - Norway on 04/22/2006
Just go to your BIOS setup en disable your network boot. Worked perfect for me :D Good luck guys and girls, and thanks for this messageboard :D
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From: shady on 04/20/2006
I was having a similar problem on an IBM Thinkpad T22. First there would be a red highlighted message that said, "hard drive not installed, operating system not found," Followed by the "pxe-e61:media test failure check cable" messages.

This all happened around a time when my battery died and refused to hold a charge at all. So, new battery, and then following some pointers on this thread, I removed the CMOS battery for a few seconds and viola, back in the game. Still some re-configing to do, but I was at a complete loss with troubleshooting the laptop (tried multiple hard drives and boot/bios configs).

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks and put this up for anyone searching for the hard drive not installed error.

-Shady

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From: iwein on 04/19/2006
I had this same problem. The solution is either Simple:

Just go to your BIOS setup en disable your network boot.

On my PC, it really did work.

Thanks

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From: Julian on 04/16/2006
I had the same problem.

In my case, the computer did not read my CD-RW properly. Replaced jumper from rightmost to leftmost. Solved the problem, drive read. Try that! =)

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From: Bill on 04/13/2006
Had all the Above, Replaced the Hard Drive working OK
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From: Larry on 04/12/2006
WAIT! Perhaps I am a dumbass!!! I also purchased WinXP from NewEgg with the RAM and hard drive, but I haven't installed it yet! So I guess I am trying to boot with no OS? I guess I should put the WinXP CD in the cd drive & see what happens. I'll let you all know. My old hard drive was dead, and I suspect that may be a common problem here.

Larry

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From: Larry on 04/12/2006
Was having a 'PXE-E53 No boot filename received', and followed all kinds of suggestions. It was suggested that I replace the CMOS battery, which I did to no help. I was a relative neo-tech, but when I figured out how to access the BIOS, I discovered that no hard drive was present.

I just installed a new Western Digital Hard Drive & tripled the RAM, and now both of these are recognized just fine. This is when the 'PXE-E61 Media Test Failure - Check Cable' error occurred and I have BIOSed this sumbitch to death, but I cannot bring it to its knees. It is a second-hand Micron PC ClientPro that I had running just fine for my wife as a second puter.

It has now been dead for a few months (I ignored it for quite a while), but now that I've put some more $ into decent upgrades, I'd like to get it going. This thread contains some great info, and has fixed some problems for people, but not me.

It (and like most other posts here) a network related issue, but I cannot disable anything that helps. Different error messages also depending on if Ihave my DSL pluged into it or not. ANY OTHER IDEAS OUT THERE ??? LET'S KEEP THIS THREAD ACTIVE!

Why do the numbskulls at Intel, Microsoft et. al. allow such stuff to happen, and go unanswered?

Larry in PA

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From: Teflonmeister@gmail.com on 04/06/2006
This is a great site.."Thanks to all"

I have a HP pavillion zv5000

I have pretty much tried all that has been suggested, and it appears that in my BIOS set up utility, under tools whne I rund botrh tests, the naswer is "no IDE Device",,,,,, Now what to do - does this mean my system does not recognize my HD, or is my HD more likly then not just bad ? More importantly is there a recomended good tool out ther to pull data off of broken, bad HD ? Lookijg for answers,, please emil me at

Michael.Kirchberg@us.army.mil

Thanks a bunch..

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From: alina on 04/05/2006
i got the same problem with the PXE-E61 media test failure
http://img383.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newpics0619zm.jpg

but after that i get

http://img350.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newpics0608qy.jpg

i dont know what it means

in BIOS all of the settings come before LAN and when i tried to reset them, still didnt work.

can anyone help me please?

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From: Russell on 04/04/2006
Plug a data cable into the nic.
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From: Sting_hz on 04/03/2006
I just repluged the ram chip and restart the computer, it's resolved!!!
You should try this step first!!!
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From: manicirishwriter on 03/25/2006
Don't remember this remedy. Never hear of F10 held down during power up to get "Hard Drive Self Test" at all!

Hope it's gold. Breath holding is not mine to be doing.

(From Compaq site; see prior post)
This spun from way prior entering the unit as my Compaq Presario laptop 2175US, fyi. Don't remember BIOS tools w/ an HDD self test.

"Test the Hard Drive:

Use the steps below to test the hard drive in a Notebook PC using the HP Hard Drive Self Test.

1. Plug the AC Adapter into the Notebook PC.
2. Press and hold the Power button for 5 Seconds to turn off the
PC.
3. Press and hold the F10 key while you press the Power button to turn on the PC. Release the F10 key after text is displayed on the screen of the PC.
4. After the BIOS Setup Utility is displayed, use the Right Arrow key to select the Tools menu.
5. Select Hard Drive Self Test
6. Press the Enter key to start the test.

The Hard Drive Self Test will provide an Estimated test time. A Quick test, a Comprehensive test, and a SMART test will execute when the Enter key is pressed."

Luck,
manicirishwriter

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From: manicirishwriter on 03/25/2006
I got about 2/3's the way thru this way too large subject (i.e. things shouldn't be this way.) Finally decided the trek to the far reaches of the frozen tundra/Compaq site might be in order.

In a land more night than day, it only took about 2 hrs with the oh-so-simple "PXE-E61" TOTALLY unrecognized by many searches upon a multitude of subcategorized flow chart dead-ends...

Then the light shone and warmed my cynical heart--I got a page labeled that way. I just ain't got ma' laptop with me at the moment, darn the luck. Oops, out of character and genre there.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/famiDocument?lc=en&cc=us&product=212728&dlc=en&docname=c00488753

Fare thee well, my fellow travailers thru the hours, days and nights of our malcontents...ments. Let everyone know your gaiety or pain; shout your moods to the sky.

Ya, it's late, I'm beyond beat, and I wax euphoric. But man, the (oh-so-wonderful) techies can dry my marrow with their barebones .txt sometimes, you know?

Namaste

manicirishwriter

"MANIA (the expensively destructive opposite-depression in Bipolar)
is not a marketing term, not low prices auto sales, not a wrestling match. Not just an "I so kray-zee" ID on the Net. Imagine ANY other physical or mental disease/illness marketed as just good clean crazy fun. It's not pretty AT ALL. Stigma, stereotype & belittling keep victims in hiding, without care, lives of ruin. It's like being FORCED to do methamphetamine until you lose everything. Weeee.
'High credit card bills killing you like a cancer in your gut?
Call us @ blah blah blah.' " --Been There

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From: mike on 03/22/2006
Hi

I have a hp ze4560us and I have the same problem. I tried changing boot order, re set bios and cmos. HP said to get another hd and the same thing. I have 2 of them and I swapped hd's and everything worked except the dvd/cdrw. I don't know what to do. Please help.

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From: Lars on 03/22/2006
Experienced the same problem, mediatest failure, check cable.
(Compaq notebook).
It showed that the RJ-45 connector was the problem.
Pin 1 was slightly bended. Not much - it took a closer look to see.
But enough not to connect.
After carefully bending it back no more error!
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From: Pieter on 03/21/2006
My HD was just broken. The machine hadn't run in a year or so and the HD was dead.
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From: Chris on 03/09/2006
I am getting the 'PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable' message, I have booted around 97 thousand times, and no change. I have also tried to restore original bios settings, this didn't work.

Oh, I also tried unplugging the HDs and still got the same message. They are plugged in now.

I will try removing the battery for around 15 mins tonight, and disable onboard LAN. I'm at school at the moment.

I hope it works ^^


Il Post again to notify :D thanks.

(btw im not on any network)

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From: travis on 03/04/2006
i have the same problem, and i will probably wound like a total idiot who knows nothing about computers when i post this. i have an old pc running windows xp home edition. i hadnt touched it in a while (about 6 months) and it had been working perfectly whenever i used it. I turned it on and get the message:
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: exiting intel pxe rom
Boot Failure: System Halted
can anyone give me a solution that does not involve taking the hard drive out of the computer, because i know nothing about how a computer in actually connected.
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From: MEL on 03/04/2006
PXE-E61 PROBLEM COMPLETELY RESOLVED DISABLED ON BOARD LAN ALSO PXE-E53 ERROR ALSO CORRECTED GRATEFUL THANKS TO THOSE WHO POSTED THIS PROBABLE CAUSE
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From: Yibeltal on 02/28/2006
I got the message
"
Media test failure, check cable"
and the problem was the hard disk bus itself was Mastr- Slave type. so the jumper on the hard disk should be on the Cable select mode
In adition there may be a need to remove the CMOS battery for a minute or so and put it again so that the system will forget the original setup
I did what I said above and it worked the trick
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From: Clarice on 02/27/2006
I own a Toshiba Techra M2. Unexpectedly it came up with this error on startup;

Intel (e) Boot agent GE v1.2.1.7
PXE-E61; Media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting Intel Boot agent
Insert System disc in drive

I followed the advice of people on this site;

- Press Esc and F1 to get BIOS up - and my boot order was fine; everything was before Network.


What it came down to was that my hard drive had actually broken loose and was not connected to the rest of the computer, a little soldering and it was fine. As it was under warantee still I got this done for free.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who posted - you gave me a little more information on the problem so I could talk to the technicians without seeming like an idiot.

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From: Blitz on 02/22/2006
I went in to the BIOS, and my notebook was setup to book from the network first, and I had a ethernet cord plugged into my router, so I changed it from cd-rom then hard drive, then network, boots up fine now, it was saying PXE : Operating System Not Found, but it still makes a loud noise.
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From: Peter on 02/22/2006
I have a Toshiba tecra laptop that was working perfectly until I installed a virus program, when I rebooted as instructed by the program I now get the same error but slightly different.

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM
press any key when ready.

pressing a key results in a reboot to the same message

I've tried everything suggested on this board so far except a full format (that is out of the question)and nothing has resolved the problem.

My disk is still there and readable as I can access it via the recovery console using the original CD, however I cannot get it to boot.

hope someone can come up with the answer.

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From: Yaakov on 02/19/2006
The error the computer gives when trying to boot up is:
Operating System not found
PXE-E61 Media test failure, check cable.

I fixed the problem. What happens is computer tries to boot up from the hard drive first and finds a problem and outputs the message "operating system not found", then tries to boot up from LAN and outputs the PXE-E61 error. No matter how much you will play with BIOS settings, your problem will not be fixed. Here is the solution:

1) Double click "my computer"
2) Right click on C-drive and pick properties.
3) Go to tools.
4) For the error checking option click on "check now"
5) In the new window only check "scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"

In two hours or so your computer will be fixed. ;)

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From: Trygvi on 02/15/2006
i got this problem too when i had baught a new pc to assemble... first i tried yelling at it, didn't work... then i tried threatening it, didn't work either... was planning on hurting it a bit to let it know i wasn't playing around, but i didn't have the heart...
so then i found out that both my dvd-rom and dvd burning-rom was set to master, so fixed that and the problem went away...
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From: Justin on 02/14/2006
This problem can also be fixed by making sure your onboard lan setting isn't turned on. None of the fixes worked for me and then i saw my LAN was turned on which i never turn on. Fixed it right away. it's located in ur intergrated periferals
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From: David on 02/10/2006
I was experiencing the "PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable" message on a Toshiba Satellite 1405-S151 laptop. The hard drive had failed, but when I installed a new hard drive, I still received the "PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable" message.

I tried resetting the BIOS as suggested in other posts, and it WORKED!!!

Many huge thanks and a big sigh of relief!

David P.

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From: Andy on 02/09/2006
I too reset bios settings to optimal default and it immediatly took care of the problem
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From: abbster on 02/05/2006
I've got a Toshiba TE2100. I've got an error message:

IDE #0 Error
Intel( R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.18
Copyright ( C) 1997-2001, Intel Corportation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Existing Intel PXE ROM.
Insert system disk in drive.
Press any key when ready

I got into BIOS and i cant disable the PXE thing, coz the next option is RPL or something like that.

And for all youse who have Toshiba laptops, and want to know how to get into BIOS, you press Esc, and then it'll tell you to press F1 =)

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From: Thomas on 01/29/2006
Thanks guys.

Thanks to you i have fixed the problem.

I have a compaq presario laptop
I went in to the bios before getting the message of the media test failure. And just pressed reset default settings.

now all is good

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From: Kev on 01/25/2006
Jase has the solution, it's easy to fix.

Go into BIOS and change the boot order around so your computer boots from the HD before the LAN. Just keep pressing the <space bar> until the LAN boot is the last in the boot order and all problems will be resolved.

A clicking noise coming from the computer mean your HD is dieing, back-up and replace.

Kev

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From: Nemesis on 01/25/2006
I had the same problem on my HP Pavilion. Update the BIOS and you should be fine. This worked for me. Find out what your BIOS is then google your way to a site that has free BIOS updates. Try www.majorgeeks.com
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From: Chris on 01/22/2006
Hi everyone;

i had the same error a couple days ago, but i had the pleassure that i lost all my data. the hdd was formated, everything was gone!!!
i tried to change the device priority, i shaked that stupid thing etc. and nothing. thanks god i found a old bootdisc,and like i said everything was gone, i had to install everything again.
the was the nastiest error ever!!
if you have that error, you are really done

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From: bri on 01/22/2006
the pc world - type problem below. well sure did get the same when i upgraded the memory a few nights ago and once again resolved it in BIOS as previously stated.
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From: bri on 01/19/2006
further to my last a few mins ago

disabled network 'thing' (yes i dont know what i'm doing) in windows = no help

went back to basics and removed battery, pressed in a buttom marked cmos (reckon this must clear settings) . put battery back in. this time i set date and time up in BIOS not XP Pro as i had done first time. And heres the thing that might have swung it..I had a look at all the other BIOS subsections and found in the Security header an entry for network (forgot wat it was Network boot or network device). Anyway I disabled the blighter. And the pc booted up properly again. So eventhough i had the network at the bottom of the boot sequence an associated setting was found in a completely different folder. Have a dig around you own BIOS - you may have something simialer with yours.

never one to let things lie i'm now going to update my RAM (hope i dont get a PCWorld-type incident as posted above!)

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From: bri on 01/19/2006
well i seem to be contra to most.

only just getting the pxe-e61:media test failure, check cable error and all i did was put a new battery in the motherboard (ie bios reset?) Changed boot sequence to hdd, floppy, cd rom, network the very last (cos cant diasble it in my bios) and no change there.

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From: natasa on 01/18/2006
hi,
I also simular problems: PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
in BIOS i get hdd=No drive
i tryed everything nothing helps please somebody help me
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From: Daniel on 01/15/2006
Subject: pxe-e61 error

I Just Got my Dell computer up and running from this error. I changed the position of my jumper on the back of my hard drive to the first position from the power plug on the hard drive. My computer cameup and i did not lose no data.

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From: Lori on 01/15/2006
Okay I have read everything, but it is very hard to see which posts are being answered.. will these solutions "changing to boot sequence also take care of the clicking sounds that start after about 1/2 hour of normal operation.. or is this a hard drive problem,..

I have an hp laptop, when out of the blue started crashing.. upon bootup noticing the pxe error.. I have been told by 6 techs it is a hard drive problem that I need to replace it. Is this a ploy for my money or will the change in the reboot also take care of the clicking and crashing?

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From: fredgsanford on 01/07/2006
Hope this helps someone, stumbled onto the answer after about 5 hours after hearing people say disable onboard nic boot. My bios wouldn't allow me but I did discover something else. When I took my piece of crap hp laptop apart to solder the power connection back together, somehow my bios got reset back to defaults.

Well, thats a problem because I had a weird boot partition. Apparently my bios is part of my boot partition and if change something it can screw it up pretty severely. In my case all I had to do was put my bios back the way it was before it was reset, in particular the fix was to put the bios password back in like it was before.

Now grub is loading and I can boot linux or xp.

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From: wrinkley on 01/07/2006
i think this might be the answer
go in to bio setting by pressing del key
then go into integrated peripherals scroll down to onboard lan control and disable this,dont forget to press f10 and save
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From: Tim on 01/05/2006
I have just been assembling my pc.I am up to the stage where u put the motherboard CD in but it doesn't pick it up it goes to this

NVIDIA Boot Agent 209.0476
Copyright(C)2001-2005, NVIDIA Corporation
Copyright(C)1997-2000, Intel Corporation
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting NVIDIA Boot Agent
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

I have tried changing boot order taking the cd changing the hard drive and cd drive i have had no luck can any one help me?

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From: Baza on 01/01/2006
I Am Having The 'Media Test Failure' error this seems to occur when i take my memory stick out of the USB port without 'safely hardware removing' and now when i switch my laptop on (HP Pavilion zv6000)and now come out with the 'media test failure, check cable'anyone got any suggestions?...i have tried changed the order my BIOS ...in all different orders but still hasn't made a difference...

Someone Please Help !!! A.s.a.p


=|


Thankyou....

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From: Steve on 12/29/2005
I fixed this problem, firstly by disabling (via BIOS) network booting (which solved the problem of it trying to boot from the network card - but not that no operating system coudl be booted)...

So...

Mine said during the initial error message that no operating system was found - obvious as it was trying to find it via the network port. I loaded the Windows XP install disk, went to the recovery console, logged into the correct partition

When at C:\WINDOWS>

type chkdsk /p
let it scan the volume
once finished type fixboot
type y to the question regarding if you want to create it on the partition, and presse enter

a new bootsector is written
remove the CD
type exit

The system will now reboot, and in my case - Windows loaded, since I have had no problems

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From: Roland on 12/28/2005
i have a compaq nx9008
can't seem to find the disable boot from betwork in the bios
can anyone tell me where is is?


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From: Dan on 12/28/2005
PXE-E61:Media Test Failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Existing Intel Boot Agent
Insert System Disk in Drive and press any key

This thing has been coming up for a month. If the computer is kept on for about 30 min to an hour with this error message showing and you hold down the power button and start it again, magically it will boot up. Someone told me it is a hardware issue because reinstalling xp didn't work for me either. My warranty on my satellite A10 toshiba (purchased in 2003) has run out and I don't want to have to buy another computer if this one is salvagable. Does getting a new hard drive really work? Best Buy says they don't carry replacements for this computer anymore so tracking one down would be a feat in itself let alone having to install it myself. Help!

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From: Jeff on 12/26/2005
PXE-E61 media test failure check cable

Whoever suggested changing the boot order, this worked for me. Change boot order so that CD-ROM, FLOPPY, and HARD DISK proceed NETWORK. If NETWORK comes before HARD DISK this error occurs.

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From: Ken on 12/20/2005
I had the same error message on my Dell Inspiron 5100 that I just bought on eBay. Tried to install Windoze, and the error message started. Win2000 Pro said that it could not find the hard drive. An IT person that is a friend tried to fix it, even did low-level format, no dice, it kept crashing. I bought a new hard drive and installed, still got the error message. I read the messages here, went to BIOS, disabled the boot from NIC, and the error message disappeared. Now if I can just figure out where I put my Windoze install cd, I think I will be set for liftoff.
Thanks to everyone who suggested that the laptop was trying to boot from a LAN.
Ken
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From: Scott on 12/18/2005
I Have A problem with my toshiba 40m after i down loaded norton go back i now have this pxe-e61:media test failure check cable can any one help me???
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From: Michael on 12/15/2005
I'm getting the pxe-e61 media test failure, check cable message after I built a mostly-new computer. Everything but the ethernet card, video card, and hard drive are new. I re-installed XP. I can get into windows perfectly fine and access absolutely everything BUT the internet. Device manager says my ethernet card is there and working fine...so what the hell is going on? I have boot order hard drive, cd, floppy. If computers weren't so fun I would wish a plague on their house!
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From: Del on 12/14/2005
I had someone with a Toshiba Tecra ask me about this problem, and I solved it due to them plugin the Modem lead (RJ11), into the ethernet port (RJ45) before booting up.

RJ11 will fit in the RJ45 but not vice versa.

After doing this once, it took about 30 minutes for the laptop to reset and let boot normally without cables plugged in, then could restart with either ethernet plugged in or modem, without this error returning.

It was the problem for me, but might not be for you.

Just thought it might help people before they start taking laptops apart.

Del

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From: Dave on 12/13/2005
I get the same error message
PXE-E61: Media test Failure - check cable. What cable?

I just turn off my laptop (Pavillion 5600)and turn it back on again and the error disappears.
NOW I have to turn it off TWICE for it to boot up.
But it eventually is useable. Losing patience though.
There are a lot of suggestions out there so I will try them all and let you know what the heck happens!

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From: Mike on 12/11/2005
Thx Kathye. I will try that. I did some searching and found a site selling somthing that resets the password but its probably bogus. Btw its an HP pavillion ze4200 laptop. Im fixing it up for my landlord...and a few others that his daughter got her hands on. OH...and another question....do these notebooks come from the stores with the bios password already in place? The only reason im asking is because he said it was working fine. But my PC experence is.... you have to set the password in the bios beforehand.


Ill keep you posted.

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From: Kathye on 12/10/2005
Reply to Mike re: getting around the password.

Look for three prongs on the motherboard with a jumper over two of them. Set the jumper in the other position; wait 10 seconds to reset, then move it back and try booting. If that doesn't work, try booting while in the other position and see if that brings you into setup where you can erase all passwords. Save settings and reset jumper.

Good luck!

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From: Mike on 12/10/2005
I seem to have a problem as well. I get the pxe-e61 error. BUT i cant get into the bios cause of a password i dont know. If anyone knows where the bios battery is located please let me know!!
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From: Alex on 12/07/2005
Hi, I have the same problem. I've tried changing the boot order and removeing the network boot option (now it just says 'Operating System Not Found' without PXE errors) and reseating the hard drive. This error happened after installing Windowsblinds 5. In the Bios under harddrive it says 'None'. I've read loads of threads on this problem and in the majority of cases the hard drive isn't bad, the computer just isn't seeing it. Anyone know a solution?
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From: cheriekeane on 12/06/2005
I received the same error message on a Compaq Armada E500 with 128mb RAM and a 15.1G hard disk.

I tried the following suggestions previously mentioned:

1. Changing the boot order in the BIOS (did not work)
2. Removing the hard disk and the network card and replacing them

The 2nd option did the trick. Before doing this, I had tried installing Windows XP several times, to no avail (the laptop previously had Windows 2000 loaded on it).

So far so good with my Windows XP installation.

Thanks to all for your very helpful suggestions.

Cheers!

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From: joshua on 12/03/2005
i just found a way to fix the pxe-e61 media test failer, check cable error it is to disable the anbourd network card so try it it really works!
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From: joshua on 12/03/2005
i have a problem it is the PXE-E61 media test failer, check cable. i have tryed a lot and looked it up and found that it is most likly a bad cable or a cable is disconnected but im not positive because i have lots of other cables and they don't do the job so u can try it if u want to but if u have any advice i'd like to know how to fix it
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From: error_hunter13 on 11/29/2005
hi everybody,
if your pc can be started in safe mode..(Press F8 during starting your PC)
start-> run -> rtun "msconfig" command
choose "general"->"selective start up"->"load start up items" will be unchecked.
Then press Ok....Reboot your pc
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From: chad on 11/28/2005
Try another boot disk. Remove LAN from boot devices.
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From: Iqbal on 11/21/2005
I am getting this error message."Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.19.
Copy right(C)1997-2001, Intel Corporation. PXE-E61:Media test failure, check cable. PXE-MOF: Exiting Intel PXE ROM. Operating system not found. I am getting this message after 3 - 4 hours my Toshiba settelite 1900 is up and running. once I shut it down after 30 - 40 minutes I can restart my laptop and it runs fine. I tried taking out the battery for 30 minutes unpluging it completely etc. I tried disabing neworki boot etc as said in this forum. I took it to Business depot and they said harddrive failed other computer guy said XP problem and he reloaded the XP but the problem is still exist I dont know what to do? any hel would be appreciated
my email imerchant@cogeco.ca
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From: Lynn on 11/13/2005
I have been getting the PXE E61 message while booting up ever since I had my memory upgraded in my toshiba laptop by PCworld. I have changed the boot priority so that I do not see it, but that does not solve the problem. I find now that the CD drive sometimes "disappears" or will not read some disks . Lots of whirring and clicking. PCworld helpdesk not very successful at diagnosing this and reluctant to take laptop back under its service contract. Sorry no help to anyone here, but there seems to be an awful lot of us with this problem
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From: Lynn on 11/13/2005
I have been getting the PXE E61 message while booting up ever since I had my memory upgraded in my toshiba laptop by PCworld. I have changed the boot priority so that I do not see it, but that does not solve the problem. I find now that the CD drive sometimes "disappears" or will not read some disks . Lots of whirring and clicking. PCworld helpdesk not very successful at diagnosing this and reluctant to take laptop back under its service contract. Sorry no help to anyone here, but there seems to be an awful lot of us with this problem
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From: Jorg on 10/21/2005
My fix: go to bios, set 'Boot from other devices' to 'Disabled'.
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From: Matt on 10/17/2005
I have had the same error:

PXE-E61: Media Test Failure
Check cable

This came when I tried putting a new hard drive in. The windows XP setup program said the same thing, that there was no hard drive attached. I then tried the drive in my Compaq Presario laptop and windows found the drive and I was able to activate a partition and format it. Not matter what, I couldn't get my IBM T41 laptop to recognize the drive before getting it formatted on the Compaq. weird...

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From: Ketil on 10/17/2005
There seems to be many different causes and solutions to this problem. I was able to fix it by using another xp cd to install with. the first one i tried was not exactly "legit". I encountered the problem while building a completely new computer and I tried all the solutions available. If none has worked for you yet and you are installing a clean system: TRY USING AN ALTERNATE OPERATING SYSTEM INSTALL CD. Good luck :)
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From: mdmudpup on 09/30/2005
have a toshiba satellite m35x laptop. was getting the scrolling pxe-e61 and pxe-m0f error. my solution was to get into the bios. i noticed that when i expanded the HARD DRIVE there was an exclamation point before the number sequence, exclamation point means disabled.

-press F2 then press power button to enter bios
-scroll over to BOOT.
-should read
+HARD DRIVE
CD-ROM/DVD DRIVE
REMOVABLE DEVICES
NETWORK BOOT

-scroll down and disable NETWORK BOOT, should read !NETWORK BOOT
-scroll up to +HARD DRIVE and expand. if there is a exclamation point befor the numbers your hard drive was disabled. enable the hard drive - (read the right side bar).
-scroll to exit and save changes.
windows xp booted up nice

life is good....

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From: Mustafa on 09/25/2005
This error is driving me nuts. I have the Gateway Solo 5300 Series laptop. My Floppy/CD Drive uses the same BAY on the laptop so I need to switch between the 2. I got this error on that cursed evening when i decided to format my hard drive using Partition Magic 8.0 and ever since I'm not able to re-install the OS on the system. I get the same PXE error. Luckily, i reached the conclusion that it can't be the IDE cables etc. as my floppy drive functions. I have used the 6 floppy boot disks required to install Win XP. But the problem is if i switch the Floppy drive with the CD drive in the same bay, the system still doesn't recognize the CD drive as it wasn't on the system when the floppy disks were installing the drivers for the components of the system. So, I'm kind of stuck in this dilemma.

The boot order switching around jazz has been tried many times by me. Changed settings to default. Bought new HD as someone suggested that could be an issue, also bought external floppy drive the system refused to boot using that external floppy as was connecting through my USB and I suppose system is not recognizing the drive.

Now, tomorrow I'm gonna buy a new external CD drive and try to directly use the Win XP CD or Win 2000 CD to see if its a CD drive issue or not or see if it actually boots from an external CD drive or not. Wish me lucky :-)

MLK

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From: John on 09/20/2005
I am a laptop service technician and I have a Toshiba laptop right in front of me (model Satellite M35X-S163) with this exact problem.

The solution for me was to turn the Wireless LAN switch to the OFF position, then reboot the computer.

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From: gmb1994@aol.com on 08/29/2005
I got the same error messages everyone else was reporting on an IBM Thinkpad T23 2647 2U6

Thanks for all the great posts!

The solution to my problem, so far, was to re-seat the hard drive. I downloaded the "Hardware Maintenance Manual" from IBM and found instructions on how to re-seat the hard drive in this particular model. I pulled the hard drive out, plugged it back in, turned the computer on and everything worked fine again.

I also set BIOS back to default settings prior to re-seating the hard drive.

This particular laptop is used for travel, so I imagine that the hard drive (and other internal components) got bumped around a lot and some connections got loose.

Even though ActiveSMART did not report any S.M.A.R.T. errors with the hard drive, I plan to immediately back up the hard drive just in case.

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From: Steve on 08/20/2005
I have the same problem and have tried everything I could find. My pavilion ze5170 will boot from a disk, Bios set to boot from FD,CD,HD then lan. It tries to boot from LAN because it can not find HD. Bios Setup can not find HD set on auto. I tried putting HD info in to user defined but still does not detect HD. I purchased a new HD because I was told the HD was bad, but still no luck. Does anyone have any thoughts on what I could do to correct this issue?

Thank You in advance for you help in the matter

Steve

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From: Mike on 08/18/2005
Was getting the same message on my Toshiba laptop.
I then removed my wireless network card and rebooted the machine,
then re-inserted network card, that fixed the problem.
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From: Anthony on 08/18/2005
How I fixed Mine.

I was receiving the same reported error as everyone else. A friend had dropped my laptop and after listening closely, I could hear my drive ticking really noisy like. Since the drive was no longer working and no bootable os could be found, it went to the next in line which was network boot. I'm guessing the error is saying there is no network cable.

I purchased a new laptop HD, enter bios with F10 (depends on laptop, sometimes del = on startup) and made sure my HD was enabled. It had an exclamation point by it, meaning it was not enabled. If there's a + by Hard Drive, you can press enter and it will fold out to see the actual HD. After repacing the HD, I put the CDROM as the first boot device, so I can boot the windows installation CD.

If you have questions post to atippett AT gmail DOT COM

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From: Vincent on 08/18/2005
Hi all,

I bought a new and faster hard disk for my laptop and installed it from scratch with the recovery cd's.
The Norton Ghost step worked fine until the last reboot, where I discover this famous message :

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

No operating system found

With the help of an IDE to USB adapter and Powerquest PartitionMagic 8.0 on my desktop, I saw that the main partition was not activated.

I only needed to make this partition "Active" (it can be done with fdisk) and it was OK.

I hope it'll help

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From: Donna on 08/16/2005
I'm getting the same errors on my Toshiba laptop, however, now my screen doesn't was let me see anything. I am a complete novice and was pointed to this location by a friend trying to help me out, does anyone have any idea why a screen will work intermittently? As well as these other errors, funny how all my problems only started when I hooked up a DSL modem to my laptop!
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From: Nicholas on 08/13/2005
Help. Mine says:

For Realtek TTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI FAST ETHERNET CONTROLLER V2.13(020326)

PXE-E61:Media Test Failure, Check Cable
PXE-M0F: Existing PXE ROM

What does this mean? What cable? I dont know anything what it says.
How do you get the BIOS password?
Please Help me

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From: EddieK on 08/09/2005
I've had the same PXE-E61 and PXE-MOF problems and luckily solved it!

Solution that worked for my PC:
Removing the networkcable from my Desktop PC did the trick. Gave it a reboot and everything worked perfect. Another reboot with the networkcable reconnected again worked fine too! I do not have an expert explanation for it, but must have been some strange kind of hardware conflict/hickup....

Things that didn't work (but seem to work for some other folks):
- reattach/replace power and sata cable(s) to harddrive
- start with a fresh BIOS by removing battery from motherboard for a couple of mins
- try to start from a recovery disk (said during process that ther was no harddrive found)
- keeping the power on for a couple of hours
- keeping the power off for a day or two (so no temperature issue)
- changing bootorder in all different possibilities


I got the inspiration from: http://www.motherboard-forum.com/asus/Help_needed_on_SATA_dirve_issue_please_572345.html

Hope that this will help you
grts
EddieK

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From: whitehatluck@gmail.com on 08/04/2005
Ok, I've read through all of these and yet none of them seem to work.

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

Comes up and then it proceeds to boot fom the HD and says Operating system not found.

It won't let me boot from the CD drive and in the BIOS I can't turn LAN off. I put it last on the boot order and still nothing.

I have a HP Pavillion ZE4220.

It would be very nice if I could get an e-mail with a solution to this problem.

whitehatluck@gmail.com

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From: nicole on 08/03/2005
Temporary fix:
Upon examination, the hard drive cable is not properly connected into the hard drive cable clip on the motherboard. Reseating the hard drive cable into the hard drive cable clip on the motherboard resolves the issue for a period of time. The period of time varies, depending on use and how often the computer is moved.

CAUSE: The hard drive cable is becoming disconnected from the hard drive cable clip on the motherboard

RESOLUTION: A new kit that includes a new hard drive cable and rubber pad has been developed to resolve the issue. The new hard drive cable is thicker and makes a tighter fit into the hard drive cable clip on the motherboard. The rubber pad is attached to the hard drive bay cover above the hard drive cable clip on the motherboard to prevent the clip from lifting and releasing the hard drive cable. This kit is part number 1533541. To resolve this issue, place an RPL parts order with no return expectations for part number 1533541

hope all this helps you all in the near future

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From: bak on 07/28/2005
I'm running Windows ME and how do you get into the BIOS because i don't see a dos screen apart from on the pxe-e61 error i've tried tapping delete what else can i do
Please help
Windows ME
Compaq Deskpro EN
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From: Peter on 07/27/2005
Went to BIOS and disabled network and Windows booted upo right away. Make sure to save settings after disabling. Thanks for advice on posts. Thought laptop was toast.
Thought. My daughter was playing the Sims for 3 hours this afternoon and the machine may have heated up as she tends to have it on her lap on a pillow. Just a thought as too why?

Thanks again, Peter

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From: Sarah on 07/23/2005
Rajesh- Were you ever able to find a solution? If so could you please email me @ sedaigle@bellsouth.net.
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From: Sarah on 07/22/2005
I tried all of the possible solutions except checking the IDE cable. Where is this, what does it look like, should I be doing this myself? Please, someone help me.
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From: ROBERT on 07/20/2005
YO, HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR THE REBOOTING TO BE FIXED,CAUSE MINE HAS BEEN ON A BLACK SCREEN FOR LIKE 15 MINUTES.

AND THE 1 TIME I TOUGH IT WAS DONE IT SAYS THAT THE WINDOWS CONFIGURATION SYSTEM WAS CORRUPTED

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From: Lisa on 07/20/2005
I have had the same problem many times...

ethernet such and such check cable says can not read harddrive.

but i unscrew back take out harddrive and put it back in... seems to work fine.. seems to be a frequent problem for laptop people.

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From: TRY THIS (it fixes) on 07/19/2005
PROBLEM:
Intel Boot Agent Failure
PXE-based errors

WHY:
It happens because your computer wants to boot from NETWORK. And because there is no network boot available it fails to start computer.

SOLUTION:
1. Enter your BIOS (usually F1, or another F-keys)
2. Enter STARTUP SEQUENCE menu
3. Change all NETWORK BOOT option to DISABLE
4. Control your BOOT SEQUENCEs to be as;
Hard Disk 1 (C) - Hard Disk 2 (D) - CD/DVD - Foloppy (A)
5. Save and Exit BIOS

You will have a standart boot-up


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From: PCT on 07/16/2005
re pxe-e61, Toshiba Laptop and BIOS
"Esc" and "F1" keys immediately after power up or Password entry will get you to your BIOS settings - not F2!, move the Lan bootup option further down the sequence
hope this helps
pct
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From: Kolohee on 07/13/2005
Aloha from Hawaii gang :) Thanks for posting all this information. It helped me get my laptop up and running again. I disabled the network in bios and it booted right up. Mahalo Nui Loa. [A very large thanks].
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From: Rudolpharts on 07/13/2005
Hello friends. I have the same problem

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

using a Biostar Mother Board. Remove batery 30 min and reinstall, it works

enjoy

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From: Nyambe on 07/08/2005
Would think it is a heat related problem - my laptop Compaq EvoN1050v) made a strange sound with the fun before the message started coming up. Still struggling ....
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From: STAPLES DM on 07/05/2005
I am having a similar problem. My issue is it says PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable. This boot program seems some what old but I can't get around it cause the last owner put an admin password on the bios settings. Please any help would be greatly appericated-
THANKS
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From: Ed on 07/03/2005
I got a similar Problem
When I turned on my laptop today, Toshiba 5200
I need to press CTRL + ALT + DEL
then it coming up with these msg

Intel(A) Boot agent FE.4.1.09
Copyright(c) 1997-2002, Intel Company
PxE-E61: Media test failure, Check cable
PxE-MoF: Exiting Intel boot Agent
Insert System Disk in Drive
Press any key when ready....

I tried to enter my BIOS, but when i pressed f2,f5,f8,f12,del,tab (I tried to press all of those when the screen was loading up) but It was stuck/hang, I cant go to BIOS system (usually i can go there)

Anyone here have site, where i can download Diskette BIOS for Toshiba 5200?
Or does anyone have solution for this problem ?? (or just reply on this forum)

Regards

Ed, (email = spy_edbert2@hotmail.com)

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From: james on 06/29/2005
i had this problem when i bought 2 new ibm thinkcenter desktop computers. i bought 2 dvd players and replaced the original CD-ROMS and started to get this message.

It took me an hour to realise that I forgot to change the jumper settings on the back to slave! Well after that, everything worked fine so if you're building a new computer, check your jumper settings

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From: patrick on 06/27/2005
this problem occurs when the computer is attepting to boot from lan thus skipping and DISABLING the hard drive. So after disabling the lan boot in yout BIOS you must aslo enable your hard drive
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From: Franky on 06/27/2005
Most likely is a hard drive problem; can't be found. If boot order is floppy, and/or CD, then HD, test floppy and CD boot. If both pass, try another hard drive. Errors seem to be heat related, check cooling.
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From: Sam on 06/17/2005
Do Fix the problem
You need to enter the system bios (try delete or f2 to enter the systme bios, if that don't look in your user manual to see how to enter or do a google search)
Once you in the system BIOS screen
go to BOOT.
Once in the boot screen under the Boot priority order disable
PCI Lan from the list.
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From: sidd on 05/27/2005
this is due to the notebook/PC try to boot from network.
sol:
Enter into BIOS setup then set default setting, save and exit.
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From: monika on 05/23/2005
hello
I have simmilar problem but worse - I can't get into the Bios, so I can't use any solution you write about.I tried many buttons but nothing works. It just repeats the message:

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 082)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

For Realtek RTL8139(X)/8130/810X PCI Fast Ethernet Controller v2.12 (010817)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cabel
PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE ROM
Operating system not found

I have Fujitsu Lifebook laptop

Any idea?
thanks in advance
monika

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From: Larry on 05/22/2005
PXE-E61 error caused by Lan boot rom

disable LAN boot rom

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From: Ramsey on 05/20/2005
PXE-E61 Error,

A Dell technician just came buy to fix my problem. I had determined it was not a motherboard issue and he concluded it was because the CD ROM drive was fried. Unfortunately most laptops require both hard drive and CD drive to both be working together. Dell replaced the CD Drive and I am now in full function. So if you are getting this error, it might be your hard drive or your CD drive. Check it out.

Ramsey

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From: Rachel on 05/15/2005
The solution to your problems are buy a wipedrive cd and wipe every thing on the hard drive. Then use your restore cd and start all over.
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From: Steven on 05/15/2005
I have a Compaq Armada M700 and get this error pxe-e61:media test failure check cable PLEASE HELP ME solve this problem.

Please reply to dbolik@hotmail.com

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From: Rachel on 05/13/2005
Reseting the bios will definetly help with the problem. I had the problem recently and it seem to go away after I let the battery charge 100%, leave it plugged into the wall for a day or two. reboot and see if it helps.
Just wondering did any of you with the "media failure check cable" message recently change your user accounts around?
If anyone knows how to get rid of a password to get into the bios setup please let me know. I have a hp pavilion xh545 and I guess that removing the cmos battery will not doing anything because hp doesn't store the password info on it, plus it is a pain in the ass to get to. HP puts the password info on a e prong, if this is removed, damaged you'll most likely never get your laptop to run again.
One more thing, if your laptop doesn't want to boot from your cd-rom, change the boot setup and select the floppy disk, restart and see if your cd-rom works.
If all else fails just get a new laptop
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From: Mark on 05/11/2005
If you really cant get past the password on the BIOS carefully remove the battery from your motherboard for a min or two and replace the bios will loose all setting and will beable to get in without password but you will start at the bios default settings.
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From: Joel on 05/06/2005
I have had the PXE-E61 problem on and off for the past few days. I recently solved the problem, at least for myself. It was occuring while I was in India and the heat was very hot. I concluded that my laptop was over heating and shutting down as a prevention. And then if I tried to reboot right away it could not read the drives and gave me a boot error message. Then I noticed that my duel fans were not working. So, my laptop had no exhaust and it shut down to prevent further problems. So, I turned the laptop upside down and put in front of a fan for about 5 minutes and it would restart no problem. So if you are having these problems, feel the bottom of your laptop to see if it feels hot and then check your fans to see if they are working. I am now back in Montreal and the weather is fine and my fans are now repaired and I have never had the problem again.

Hope this helps everyone else,
Joel

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From: Daniel on 05/05/2005
Ok. same problem. FOUND THIS SOLUTION!

take out the network card/disable it

put ONLY the HDD on the boot up sequence. my old HDD had WinXP on it, and it booted RIGHT UP.

~~Dan

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From: liyen on 05/04/2005
Hello, I¡¦m liyen. I¡¦m having problems like you too¡K

Before problem occurs, viruses were detected after I scanned using Norton antivirus. Then I switch to safe mode and remove all the viruses. When settled, I accidentally shutdown my laptop instead of restarting it. By the time I on my laptop, it shows :

Initializing MBA Ctrl+Alt+B to configure.......

Argon PXE Boot Agent v2.01(bios integrated)

Pre-Boot Execution Environment (PXE).

It said that:
PXE-E61:media test failure, check cable

Then it shows:
operating system not found¡K

I¡¦ve tried pressing F2 key to enter to the bios but it require a password to enter it¡K I didn¡¦t set any password before! I got no idea of how to fix it¡K same goes to ¡§esc¡¨ key, when I press it, it comes out a Boot menu like this:
1)Removable devices
2)cd-rom device
3)harddrive
4)built in lan

I¡¦ve tried pressing F8 key to try to starts windows in normal mode but I¡¥ve failed!

As I press F12, the ¡§Initializing MBA Ctrl+Alt+B to configure.......¡¨ appear then.

i can't even reinstall from the cd-rom like what you had said, it just freezes after saying checking the systems configurations before entering the actual windows setup. I can¡¦t even format my hard disk also¡K

what can I do now? Please help me!!!!!

WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION
email:liyen_@hotmail.com

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From: Rachel on 05/02/2005
I am having the same problem. I recently bought a HP Pavilion xh545. I had it for all of 15 minutes when I got the message
ADMtek boot agent V1.17_1401_03 (2001/08/06)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, Check cables
PXE-M0F: Exiting ADMteck PXE ROM
At first it would let me go to the advanced options and go into safe mode. Now it does nothing. I can't get into the setup because I don't know the password. Is their a way getting around the password? Could their possible be a short some where? Please someone anyone help me.
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From: Car on 05/02/2005
HEY Guy who put this message
PLEASE HELP ME I HAVE the SAME PROBLEM

THANKSsss
my e-mail is

cvillagomez@msn.com

HELP

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From: Len on 04/29/2005
Check the toshiba web site but I think on toshiba laptops, you hit the tab key while it powers up, just like you hit delete on a normal computer to get BIOS. If not it's one of the F keys, like F5 or F8, try them all.

When you find out, write it on the back side of the laptop for next time because I always forget too.

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From: Chris on 04/28/2005
I have a Tashiba Sattelite 5105 series with hard drive issues, or so it seemed.
Originally the system would not boot before becomming very slow and then gave up. I tried installing the 1 - 3 application discs provided by Tashiba, but when i go to install it, the system go's into a start up loop. It will ask if I am sure i want to proceed and I touch the F1 key to accept. then another screen appears and say's "Warning" ar you sure, and You type "C" to continue, th laptop shuts down and reboots and go's into the same question loop.

I bought a new hard drive same 40gb but different HDD # and Disk Drive #. Shouldn't be an issue right? Wrong, I get the same symptoms above with the new hard drive with "PXE-E61: Media test failure".

I portioned the hard drive from my working desktop and it came up "Healthy" from my external HDD USB. I placed the Tashiba applications disc in without any success. I even placed my Win XP Pro CD in and it ran for a bit, then said "No HDD found".

How do i get into BIOS to set this up, and/or check the settings? F12 seems to create a broken line underneath some pictured components which are: (1) = multiple cd's, (2) = single CD, (3) = 3.5 Floppy, (4)= Net work, (5) = HDD

So I have been racking my brain a bit. Please help!!
I'm almost thinking that Tashiba has their own bios boot cd? as their HDD were already set up etc.

PLEASE HELP!!!!!

Thanks Chris

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From: MIke on 04/27/2005
I took the side off, pressed all the cables from the psu into their sockets as hard as i could, and my machine booted up straight away...as simple as that!
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From: Michael Man on 04/01/2005
Hi,guys,
I'm a chinese , I also hope that you guys can help me, I had got a problem:I've got a Fujitsu S6220 Series lifebook , I left my laptop on during my trip for five days , after this , I turned on my laptop ,there's two answer:If I plug in LAN cable , it said: Intel Base-Code , PXE-2.1(build 082j)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
Client Mac ADDR :00 0B 5D 51 29 74 GUID:245F3684 F178 11D8 8B14 000B5D512974
PXE-E53:No boot filename received
PXE-M0F:Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM.
Operating System not found

If I am not plug it in,it said:
Intel Base-Code , PXE-2.1(build 082j)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
PXE-E61:Media test failure , check cable
PXE-M0f:Exiting Broadcom PXE ROM.
Operating System not found

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From: Jesse on 03/31/2005
Replaced the HD on a IBM NetVista Desktop and this error starting popping up at bootup. After changing out ribbon cables without success I went into BIOS setup and it was set on bootup to try local drives then LAN. I changed bootup to try local drives only and the error message hasn't appeared again. Dumb huh! I fthe damn thing boots from the local drives first, why would it even advance to the point of trying to boot to the LAN. Heck, don't knock it if it works.
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From: TYLER on 03/24/2005
MY COMPUTER IS AN OLDER DELL MODEL AND IT COMES UP THE PXE-E61 ERROR MESSEGE BEFORE IT DOES ANYTHING ELES IT LOADS THE DELL SCREEN ADN GOES STRAIT TO THAT IVE TRIED FOOLING WITH THE CABLES AND IVE TRIED TAKING OUT THE BATTERY AND EVEN SWITCHING THE DISK DRIVES ALL TO MASTER NOTHINGS WORKING PLEASE HELP

TYLER

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From: Thomas on 03/22/2005
pxe-e61:media test failure check cable"

This error can be rectified by going into BIOS >main>Internal Hard Disk> and enable 32 bit I/0 and save settings. restart pc.

pls let me know if it helped.

Thanks
Thomas

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From: Paul on 02/22/2005
I have the same error as everyone else:

PXE-E61: Media Test Failure
Check cable

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM

but I CANNOT get into my bios to change the settings... when I hit f10 to enter the bios the computer prompts me with "starting flash memory recovery Y/N" if Y it beeps forever and nothing happens or changes when i boot up, if N then I get taken to the

PXE-E61: Media Test Failure
Check cable

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM

Any ideas?

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From: David on 02/15/2005
I am trying to turn on my compter. It is telling me boot failure. It is a Hatch Computer. Please write me at Gordito38@aol.com
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From: Fiddes on 02/15/2005
Yeah, I've had the same problem recently with my Gateway 200 series laptop. It got to the point where I would smack the computer on my bed to fix it (which actually worked sometimes.) Using bios i frigged around with some settings and managed to get the computer to work. Resetting the boot order is one way...deleting any ability your pc has to boot from lan worked for me. Stupid craptops...im getting a shuttle
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From: Damian on 02/13/2005
If this is a new build, don't worry, set the boot sequence to:
1 cd/dvd
2 HDD/IDE 0

Stick in your OS CD
Away you go.

It seems to me that it's the new message for 'boot record not found, insert system disc ... etc.

Hope this was of help - had me sweating for a few minutes till I thought what the hell; let's stick the disc in and see what happens...
Immediately starts to go on.

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From: rubidium on 02/10/2005
I has the PXE message after my son dropped the laptop - only a couple of inches, and it worked for a day or two after. After several hours sweating over failed HDD's, viruses, etc. decided to take some covers off. Turns out the IDE cable had come loose from the motherboard - just needed reseating! (phew!)

Moral - always check the obvoius first!

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From: JP on 02/09/2005
Got same Pxe ERROR BUT DECYPHERED AFTER SETTING TO DEFAULT BIOS
THANKS FOLKS
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From: Edsard on 02/07/2005
This is what I encountered:
also the PXE messages, but I Enabled every boot device
in the bios at the ´security´ chapter... ´device start protection´

now my problem is over...I hope you can use this information...

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From: martin on 02/07/2005
For those who get a password prompt when they try to solve this problem, you need to be a superuser, or administrator. To get into your own computer as this, restart and press the F12 or F8 key, depending on how your pc is set up.

Regards

Martin

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From: Virgintamr on 02/06/2005
I just reset the bios default and that worked for me. Before that I hooked it up to my router network and that worked too. But after I reset the bios to default and tried without hooking to the network it worked great.
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From: Fernando on 02/03/2005
In the selection of the order boot leve only CD/DVD and HDD and the others select Disabled. The problem will be off.
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From: khadeer on 01/30/2005
I HAVE THE SAME PXE-061 PROBLEM WITH MY TOSHIBA SATTELLITE. BUT WHEN I PRESS F2 TO GET INTO THE BIOS ITS ASKIN FOR A PASSWORDS. PROBLEM IS THAT I NEVER SET A PASSWORD. PLEASE HELP..!
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From: Ivan C on 01/26/2005
I also simular problems: PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable. I tried getting into the BIOS to change settings and it is asking me for a password. I never put a password in the BIOS. I have a HP ze5170 laptop. Need help! Thanks
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From: Raybshot on 01/22/2005
I'm getting the
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
error but not the PXE-M0f thing...

I've gone through the bios and the boot is set
1 Floppy
2 HHD1

the rest are disabled. Now I can boot up onto the floopy system disk but it doesn't recognize the C Drive, yet in the bios it see's the HDD and CD RW. I was thinking it was a bad HDD so I bought new one, had some other issues with that, realised I was using a 40 pin ide cable, swaped that out to the 80 pin cable and it recognizes the new hdd and still looking for a boot disk. This is fine because the primary drive doesn't have an OS on it yet except when booting to the A drive I can't access the CD drive or HDD to install the OS on it. The PC doesn't find the drives while at the a prompt and chkdsk c: so any ideas what I should do? I've messed with the bios extensively (probably messed up things up) but I don't see anything in there that says PXE as well as the one place I saw the word LAN I disabled.

Thanks in advance

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From: Kane on 01/21/2005
I had this same error, and i let it loop for awhile where it says no os found, hit f1, and it seemed to reset itself
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From: Em on 01/20/2005
I had the same problem with my Compaq Presario (Windows XP). Actually, I had it twice. The first time I just turned it on and off for about 10 minutes and it worked. About a week later, I got the popping sounds and the blue screen again, and this time it wouldn't start up at all. The black error screen just kept popping up. What I did was go into setup in the very beginning (pressing esc), and going into the boot order. I disabled the floppy disk and network, and left just the cd-rom and hard disk. Also, I maximized the hard disk (to show the sub-writing), and found that the sub-writing was disabled as well. I don't know how it got to be like that, but I enabled it and saved and exited setup. My computer worked after that. The driver recovery disk was in from the beginning as well. I don't know if that did anything, I doubt it, but it seemed to do the trick... so far.
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From: joe joe on 01/20/2005

I have this same error, but when i try to go to the BIOS it only gives me an option for Date and Password. Theres nothing about boot sequence or anything.

what does this mean?
thanks!

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From: Vicki on 01/02/2005
I have the same problem with my HP ze4145. I have found that if you leave the screen up for about 15 minutes and reboot that it Windows will start right up. Once the system is warmed up, it seems to boot right up. Any suggestions to what the problem might be?
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From: Augustine Mamamo on 01/01/2005
Brother,

I also got the same problem. Do you know what the solution for this is?

Please email me on this email address: mamamo@solomon.com.sb

if you got the answer.

Cheers

Augustine

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From: Travis. on 12/30/2004
I am trying so set up a sata hdd on a new mobo. HDD is connected on sata 1. DVD R and DVD player are set up on IDE 2 master and slave When I go into the bios it reads and recognizes the HDD. But, when I go to set up XP, windows setup says there is no HDD connected to my comp so I can't even set up XP. When I try to boot from the HDD which has an older version of windows, I get the media test failure, check cable message. Any help on why XP is not recogizing my HDD on the SATA connection.

Thanks
Travis

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From: Maaz Ahmed on 12/24/2004
Hi, I came accross a similar PXE-MOF error, I disabled the integrated NIC but that did not help; I checked the boot sequence, only FDD was listed as the 1st boot device and the other devices were disabled.Changed the HDD as the second boot device and it did the trick.
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From: Peter on 12/24/2004
I got the pxe-61 media test failure, check cable error for an HP ze1115 and I tried to change the boot order and get rid of the PXE boot but it didn't work. Tried to boot from CD using windows XP disk but the computer shut off in the middle of my installation. I conclude that the hard drive is bad.
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From: Prasant on 12/17/2004
I am a system Engineer,

You will get this error message because if BIOS settings .

Disable pxe from bios and reboot your computer.

Everythingh will workfine.

Its not a problem with hard drive and not related to OS .

Thanks.

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From: Yuri on 06/18/2004
I have found this problem occurs when there is a bad harddrive. At my work i have a ton of Dell Optiplex GX1s and whenever there is a hard drive that does not work well in one or some kind of weird partitioning i'll get taht error.
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From: MaMMa on 06/12/2004
I have the same issue after updating my BIOS. It was working fine after the update. Then I overclocked it, assuming I tweaked it too high and now I can't get by this message.

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From: Mr. Egan on 05/30/2004
If any of you have burned an ISO cd image and are trying to boot with that (example: trying to boot/install linux) then you did not burn the ISO image the right way. Use a program like Nero or something that can burn ISO images the right way and your problem will be solved.
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From: ally on 05/28/2004
I've disabled the PXE in bios, it was giving the following error:

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: exiting intel PXE ROM
1962: No operating system found. Press F1 to repeat boot sequence.
now it saying:

1962: No operating system found. Press F1 to repeat boot sequence

whats next

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From: Ryan on 05/17/2004
I work as a tech support agent and have seen this problem with a few people, havn't isolated the issue yet but reseting the bios defaults seems to solve it.

cheers.

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From: cam on 04/29/2004
Hi all,

i have an IBM laptop, A22m.

it has been working fine for several years, then recently i noticed a small sound, like a 'click', then everything freezes and i got the blue screen of death. rebooting fixed this twice, then the 3rd time i got
pxe-e61:media test failure check cable
PXE-M0f: Exiting Intel PXE ROM
Operating System not found

after a few minutes i heard the same 'click', rebooted, and it came up again.

i conlcuded that the Hard Disk is unhealthy and about to die !

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From: Peter on 04/24/2004
hello!
i have a notebook HP. me too about error,but i cant command harddisk.i take my harddisk to computer fix company.he said my harddisk die.All my data delete.Please tell the way,i want fix my data?
help me!please!
Thanx so much!
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From: Gary on 04/20/2004
Hi.
I have a dell optiplex g1 and I ve met exactly the same problem but only with one of my 2 hard disks.All the connections are good but if i put my 2nd hard disk (which is formated and not broken,i can use it with the first one in windows 98) instead of the first one this message appears...
It is not the bios (i have the last update),because it works with the first one.
Any ideas are welcome!!thanks.
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From: Pranith on 04/05/2004
Hi,

I have windows 2000 on my Home PC

The following error started popping up recently during boot up.
I started getting the following error whenever I switched on the computer:

PXE-E61 - Media Test Failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE

This error continues to popup...it goes on in a loop...

any suggestions on how to overcome this are really welcomed...

Please help me ASAP...

Thank you
PR

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From: c on 03/17/2004
Could this be caused by a HD crash?
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From: Bill on 03/04/2004
Hi

Had the same problem with Intel D815EEA2 motherboard.

Try turning off the Quiet Boot option so you can see the messages.

To do this press the F2 key during boot to get the setup screen.
Select the Boot menu,
choose Quiet Boot, press CR
Choose Disabled, press CR(?)
press F10 to Save and Exit.

When I did this I found that I had a partition table problem on my HD.

Hope this helps :-)

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From: Talal on 01/15/2004
I haveing the same problem. Did any one find a solution to the problem "pxe-e61:media test failure check cable" I am using toshiba tablet pc ruuning XP. please help


Joukhdtj@yahoo.com

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From: Talal on 01/15/2004
Did any one find a solution to the problem I have a toshiba and I am geting the same message " pxe-e61" and the tablet OC reboot it's self. please any solition let me know
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From: Mtalo on 12/25/2003
I have encountered a slightly different problem:
My perfectly working (until recently) Toshiba Satellite running Windows 2000 started giving me the following message upon boot failure:

Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.18
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure
Check cable

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM
Insert System Disk in Drive

How can I fix the problem?

mtalo@uclas.ac.tz
Dar Es Salaam

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From: Mtalo on 12/25/2003
I have encountered a slightly different problem:
My perfectly working (until recently) Toshiba Satellite running Windows 2000 started giving me the following message upon boot failure:

Intel(R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.18
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure
Check cable

PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM
Insert System Disk in Drive

How can I fix the problem?

Mtalo E. G.
Dar Es Salaam

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From: noel on 12/17/2003
but on a compaq presario you cant disable the pxe boot..or is there some trick?
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From: Chandrika on 09/16/2003
Disable the intel boot agent or any bootable network media in the boot menu in the bios.
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From: PJ2 on 08/26/2003
Rajesh
What was the solution to your problem ? I am having the same error message.
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From: kaviyarasu on 07/22/2003
Disable PXE remote boot option in boot tab of the BIOS setup ( F1 whie starting the comptuer ) - boot tab
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From: jase on 05/04/2003
If you can set in the bios the following this should help you...

1.Removerable device
2.HDD 0
3.CD-ROM
4.BOOTABLE DEVICE OR LS-120


Chech that you have put in place correctly the ide cables for the primary master drive and all other devices on the ide bus.

Also don't use that last device on the bios device boot priority setting...I think by what other poeple have said that its true you are attamting to boot off of a network.

The system is looking for a device to boot from, you need to set priority to the harddrive...go into your bios and set only the hard drive to boot from... make sure you have checked the ide cables first and also that the hard drive is set on the primary ide channel and not the secondry channel, and is also set as master...


Jase


Jasonmerlin20@hotmail.com

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