Unable to local boot device

[ElGroggy]

I'm not sure if this is the right section, but...

I recently recieved a Dell laptop fro ma friend, and the hard drive had been completely wiped using KillDisk. I was supplied with the Windows XP disk used to install the XP onto the computer.

When I turned on the laptop, I recieve a message that "no boot system can be found", and it then went on to check other modes for a boot device. We rebooted and inserted the XP installation disk, but the laptop was unable to find it either. It won't allow us to install the opperating system off of the disk, and we can't use the laptop because it won't fully boot up. Any suggestions?

 

[raybay]

Please give us the model of the laptop, and the service tag number.
I would go to the website of the hard drive manufacturer, unless it is a Toshiba.
Toshiba does not offer drive fitness tools...
Download the drive fitness tools and setup up software for that drive.
Then inspect your BIOS for boot order, so that the optical drive is first to boot.
If the laptop has a floppy drive, boot to a MS-DOS or Windows 98 boot/System disc and see how the drive is detected there. Delete the partition in the last line for unknown, and reformat as FAT32 partition. Then reboot to the Windows Disc, where it will detect and reformat it as NTFS

 

[Tmagic650]

Get into the bios and set the CD ROM as the first boot device. Your CD/DVD drive may be bad. You can use an external floppy and a Windows 98 boot floppy to boot the laptop. Because KillDisk was used, you will have to partition and format the drive

 

[ElGroggy]

I can't download anything because the computer won't fully boot. The serial number is 5YLZV01

I've set the CD-ROM drive to be the first to boot, and we'll be replacing the drive soon because it's pretty much fried. I'll post what happens after we get the new drive. Thanks for your help.

 

[raybay]

Well you are talking on this forum, so use the same computer to download, so you have it handy.

 

[ElGroggy]

ALright, so here's the deal; we couldn't get a Cd-ROM drive anytime soon, so we picked up a flash drive and loaded XP onto it using a neighbor's computer. I plugged it in to the USB drive, but the computer isn't booting off of it. I went into the configuration menu. Here's a list of available boot devices:
Internal HDD
CD/DVD/CDRW Drive
Diskette Drive
Modular HDD
Cardbus NIC
C/Port or C/dock NIC
C/Dock or C/Dock II PCI slot NIC
C/Dock II bottem PCI slot NIC
Mini-PCI NIC

So what should I do now?

 

[Tmagic650]

I'm afraid you'll have to wait for CD ROM Drive