I purchased 2 PC's - both exactly the same.
The first message says PXE-E6: Media test failure, check cable
Then reads: Disk boot failure....

I can't imagine what cable it is describing, let alone on both PC's.
I suspect it is trying to locate a server which no longer exists.
It detects the CD-Rom, floppy, and hard drive in BIOS.
I have the booting order as: floppy, Cd-ROM, and HD.
Diskette is acknowledged. HD is PRI Master CD is SEC Master
The motherboard is an ASUS
Pentium 4
NIC
Thanks in advance for anything you have to offer.

Huh???

If it's telling you there's a boot disc failure it can't find an operating system to start. If it's telling you there's a cable missing, the BIOS could be set to boot from LAN. Are these used computers from an enterprise environment? You didn't say. If used, the OS could have (should have) been removed by the seller. After all the installed OS was licensed to them.

The Hard disk has been wiped clean by the seller. I suspect they used these in a network. They sell PC's by the pallet! I tried to install WIN XP - It can't access the hard drive. I think that's what it said. Sorry I was whisked away for a surprise B-day. I think it is set to boot from LAN. In fact it says..."LAN technologies" when trying to boot. I disabled that from the BIOS. Same problem.
So is there some way of installing the OS other than just putting the XP CD in? Honestly, I don't fully understand the partition stuff. THANKS

are you sure these are even mainstream PCs.. do you know anything about what's inside them?

Try once again reformatting the hard disk (NOT QUICK FORMAT)

but perhaps not.. I don't see how both disks could be permanently damaged

Recalcitrant.. A term just waiting for computers

Captain CrankyFiZiks,
1 thing to Captain Cranky:
Is a bootable drive scrubber software?

I tried the BIOS settings in all orders available CD, Floppy, HDD; CD HDD...I also disabled the cache temporarily. I downoaded a manual for my motherboard, but don't have time to research the meaning of it all!
I tried another HDD freshly formatted from my ever so stock Micron, I tried switching jumpers, (all WD HDD's by the way), I tried installing the software for the HDD, and maybe one of the last things, I removed the battery for about 40 minutes. All of this before I signed on here. That is about as much as I know. I will attempt the list from Captain
Thanks alot!

Did You Get The license Number......So To Speak

1. Yes a drive scrubber is software. A bootable CD that will run without an OS carries bits and pieces of MS-DOS so it's an mini-OS unto itself. It would help to know who built these PCs. IE: An Intel board 915GAG board installed in an Emachines is not the quite same as an Intel 915GAG that you would buy in a retail box. The "Tatoo" I spoke of. A brand new hard drive is just that, not even formated. Can't be used until windows formats it. I know it's probably irritating to know, but a new HDD, a new board, and a copy of Windows usually makes an uneventful, successful install. The hardware drivers are carried in with windows, installed and that's usually that. You can (I think) actually load a floppy with MS-DOS and have it function. To what end, I'm not exactly sure. You know, coming from a corporate environment these machines could have been running NT, Unix, Windows 2000, who knows?