Laptop won't load Windows XP

[emmapender44]

I have a relatively old laptop with a problem. It is a Medion Sim 2000 and it just won't load up. The laptop loads with the intel celeron screen and says press F2 for BIOS settings and then it goes to the next page and asks for boot drive. Please help! I dont have the xp home edition disc any more. What can I do?

 

[Route44]

Sounds like a harddrive issue. Just how old is this laptop?

 

[red7204]

If you search on line, there are several people that have separated the recovery console from a XP installation disk. Then look up how to repair the boot up or the MBR with the recovery console.

I had an old computer a while ago that would not boot up and said "hard disk failure" so I did exactly what I did above and was able to fix the computer so it will boot up. I looked for the site I used before but can not find it at the moment, when I do I will post it.

You might want to get as much info as you can, if the process is messed up it might hurt the HDD. As soon as I find the exact site and instructions I will post it.

 

[red7204]

I found the sites that had the recovery console download in a .iso format, I will post as so as I am able to post links. Also I am still looking for the instructions of how to repair the boot up process, as soon as I find them I will post it, they are much harder to find for some reason. Unfortunately my browser history may not go back far enough, or they may be on my other computer which is not working at the moment.

 

[red7204]

Here are the sites to download the recovery console .iso file which can be burned to a cd. I am still looking for the specific instructions on how repair the boot up process. I am looking for the specific instructions because I know they worked, there may be other sites that tell how to fix this using the recovery console, but most other ones I have found they are not very detailed and don't explain everything.

http://forums.pcpitstop.com/index.php?showtopic=150212

http://www.tweakxp.com/article36941.aspx

Two sites with Recovery Console .iso files provided one does not work or the server is down.

Here is something else that might be worth looking into, it says it fixes the boot up process without a cd. But again I will keep looking for the site I used before.

http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum/windows-xp/27414-repair-mbr-without-xp-cd.html