Greeted with failure

By Filip Salomonsson; published on January 29, 2007.

Everytime I boot my home computer, it goes through the same startup sequence of checking various sources for something bootable. Normally, this starts with the CD-ROM, because if I have a bootable CD in there I probably mean to boot from it. All fine.

It's very rarely that this actually happens, though. Pretty much the only time is when I'm installing a new operating system (or booting from a Live CD to unbreak something unintentionally gone boom-boom). So the normal case is that the "check for bootable CD" fails.

In effect, every time I boot up, I'm greeted with this message:

Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM : Failure ...

What are the implications of labeling the standard case a failure? To what extent does seeing the word "failure" briefly in the corner of their eye affect the user's trust?

Uncertainty is at the base of a lot of user anxiety. Booting normally from harddrive. Success.