No bootable sector on hard drive

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whoknows30

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Hi, I have a dell inspiron b130 laptop which my old HD failed so, I sent it in and received a new one but, I put the new HD in and after 2 beeps it says " No bootable sector on internal hard drive" and "No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility" I tried loading my windows xp disc but, nothing happened. I ran the diagnostic to see if the harddrive was ok and everything was alright. The motherboard detects it but, doesn't want to do anything. I was hoping that someone could help me with this problem?
 
Check your bios settings and change the boot order. Place your cd-rom before your hard drive on the list. Then install Windows.
 
Get it back to Dell immediately. It sounds as if they are responsible for getting it back to reliability.
 
Check your bios settings and change the boot order. Place your cd-rom before your hard drive on the list. Then install Windows.

I set my cd-rom 1st and hard drive 2nd and ran the disc but, all it did was spin for a few seconds then stop and giave me the same error message so, I am contacting "Western Digital" about the hard drive that they sent me and see what they tell me.
 
Western Digital told me the same thing but,after I download the file do I unzip the file and send it to media player to burn it as a data discs or is there more to it. Don't get me wrong; I've burned media discs before but, not program discs or is it basically the same
 
ok, I ran a dell diagnostic program by hitting F12 and it shows that the hard drive is ok and the motherboard recognizes the hard drive but, when I reboot it, I see the windows logo then the screen goes black with a flashing cursor for a while then I hear a beep followed by "No bootable sector on internal hard drive"
 
What I need is a program that will automatically run when I turn the computer on. At this point it won't accept my o/s disk so, I went in the bios and set my usb drives 1st because' my sister get me a copy of my o/s and put it on my flash drive but, it was no good cause, it said "invalid system disc" (I swear my computer hates me)
 
I'm getting really frustrated

I ran my dell diagnostic software and it shows the hard drive is ok but, there is no bootable sector on the hard drive so, it's not allowing me to install my operating system. I heard that every hard drive has a bootable image or something like that and if that's true then, can I just download a bootable image? I am getting no where with western digital
 
Have you tried to boot into safe mode or using Last known good configuration? Keep pressing the f8 key before the windows logo screen and see if you can use either.
 
Dell's system is infamous for not discovering the boot sector(s) are bad.
Take your drive out, and put it into another computer in a USB enclosure or as a slave in another computer, then go to the website of the hard drive manufacturer and run their hard drive test. Every manufacturer except Toshiba has one.
If those tests show it works, run an install on another computer.
If this drive is a SATA drive, you need to set up the computer and the drive for SATA use... per instructions that come with the drive on the manufacturer's web site.
If there is NO BOOTABLE SECTOR on the hard drive, then you will need to run a new isntall from scratch using the Dell recovery - reinstall disk...
You can use the external USB enclosure, or the slave process in a desktop, with an adapter, to save all your data before you run the reformat and reinstall.
 
What I need is a program that will automatically run when I turn the computer on. At this point it won't accept my o/s disk so, I went in the bios and set my usb drives 1st because' my sister get me a copy of my o/s and put it on my flash drive but, it was no good cause, it said "invalid system disc" (I swear my computer hates me)

You can download and burn a copy of the Windows XP Pro Recovery Console to boot from. Click here for download

You may be able to simply use the recovery console to repair the boot record. Click here
 
boot sector

from xp disc go to recovery console and hit R under command line type help, from here you will get correct command for creating new bootsector typr that command in and voila! you may also repair you master boot as well.
 
Now, I have a new problem? I finally was able to install my operating system but, when it asked me to reboot my laptop then, this popped up: "error loading operating system" Is there a way to wipe the hard drive and start over or is that dangerous?
 
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