JimmyRB5PRO

havinhg just returned form hols - 1 week my laptop says "operating systems not found" on boot up and just has a flashing curser!
it was not left on and was switched off any idea's pls !!!!

any help appreciated - do i have to re - install my XP home office ? If so what happens to info held in outlook ???

Cheers
James - JimmyRB5Pro

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

The most likely reason is that the HDD has died. Do you have a bootable CD (such as a Windows XP one)? If so, boot it up, and see if you can access C:\


M

JimmyRB5PRO

ok M tried that and all the it seems to do id beep - i've even told it to boot from the cd-rom in the bios and still nothing .........when the flashing cursor is flashing should i be able to type into that ???

doug2507

iTrader: (6)

Sounds like the hard disk has failed. Same thing happened to my old laptop. Was a 60gig drive and cost £120 for a replacement!

ScoobyDoo555

Unless you've backed up Outlook, you'll have lost the data

Hope it's not as terminal as it sounds....

Dan

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Have you tried physically reseating the Hard drive (Whilst the laptop is off). The hard drive is usally situated underneath under a flap. Just in-case it's got dislodged. Then try poweringup to see if it can be detected.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Should have explained myself in a bit more detail: you need to go into either BIOS or Boot order, and change the boot order so that the CD drive comes before the hard drive. No load the CD and reboot. You should then get the "Install Windows XP" etc routine. Wait until you get to thee bit where it asks you if you want the recovery console, and say yes. You will eventually get a flashing prompt like this: D:\ . If you are just getting a blank field with a blinking rectangle it means Windows doesn't know what to do. If you have a letter, then try typing C: + Enter. If you get a drive not found error then the HDD is dead.

It's also worth booting into BIOS to see if BIOS can see the drive. If it can't it's deffo dead.

M

aqua

you could also try booting with a Linux boot CD which contains an OS image and this can sometimes allow you to view the corrupted hard drive and backup any critical data. Have used this several times and it works well.

Another possibility is to try a repair of the OS using your original CD.

I can probably send you a copy of the Linux boot CD if you want to try it and time is not an issue.

Henry

mark1234

You could also check what's plugged into it.. for some reason I'll never understand, if my usb c/f card and reader are plugged into my lappy at powerup it does exactly that.. it appears it's trying to boot off the c/f card. (I didn't think it was possible to boot a usb device, but I may be behind the times )

DesR

Hi.

FYI - Its possible to boot a machine off a USB device as long as the motherboard supports it (and the USB device is bootable). Assuming you have a big enough USB device you could install your operating system onto the memory card and significantly increase your boot time. If you are interested:

http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardwa...omusbstick.php

Cheers

ChefDude

is there a floopy disk in the drive?

King RA

been there....

GC8

Boot from a diskette and at the command prompt type: fdisk /mbr <enter> Repeat this three times and then attempt to boot from the fixed disk again..... More than half of all 'failed disks' are magically restored by repairing the master boot record.


Simon