Insert Boot Disk / Vista to XP intstallation error

[JakeRazor]

Hey,
I bought a laptop some time ago, and a little while ago, it froze, and when I restarted it i got an error that sais "Insert Boot Disk, Press any key to Continue".

I tried putting in a Windows XP disk, but I just get:

"a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer

check for viruses on your computer. Remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive contollers. check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. run CHKDSK /f to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

technical information:
*** stop: 0x0000007b (oxf78d2524, 0xc0000034, 0x000000000, 0x00000000) "


I went to run a start-up, Run-in & Hard Disk Test.
The Start-up & Run-in Tests were 100% fine, but when I clicked Hard Disk Test, it sais "Hard Disk does not Exist"

My laptop is a HP G50 Notebook PC,
Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU T3400 @ 2.16GHz
Total Memory: 3072Mb
InseydeH20 VersionL F.32
Factory Installed OS: Vista

I don't know what to do, I can't afford to get it fixed, and I really need my laptop.

Any help would be extremely useful and greatly appreciated...

 

[B00kWyrm]

Hello Jake... Welcome to TechSpot. Sorry for your long wait in getting any reply.

You may also receive this error message if one or more of the following conditions are true:
* The hard disk is faulty.
* The hard disk cabling is faulty, or the hard disk cabling is not connected correctly.
* The computer is infected with a boot sector virus.
* The computer BIOS or the disk controller firmware are incompatible with Windows Vista.
* Another program is using the master boot record.

Since the error screen specifically suggested malware,
I would recommend going to the Virus and Malware board, https://www.techspot.com/vb/menu28.html
and asking in a new thread on that board if there is any way to deal with a possible boot sector virus on a machine that will not boot to its Windows Vista OS. Obviously, if you cannot boot, you cannot run the https://www.techspot.com/community/...lware-removal-preliminary-instructions.58138/. They may have a workaround for you.

Of course it may not even be viral, but a hard drive failure.
Questions...
Why did you use an XP cd in a Vista machine?
What did you leave the computer doing, during which it failed?