XP wont load up

[yungmain23]

Out of nowhere my operating system windows wont load up. It comes up with a message saying that there is no operating system detected. I havent changed anything or removed xp what can i do to get it runing again??

 

[Ididmyc600]

Hi

Looks like eitherr your Hard drive has died or something killed the operating system, here's what you can do,

oh hang on before i bother with a long list, have you got an XP disk or any kind of restore disks.

Regards

 

[yungmain23]

I dont have any restore disk or anything. I didn't get one when i bought the computer either.

 

[Ididmyc600]

Hi

Dam, your in trouble then pal, do you know anyone with a disk that is the same as the OS (there is XP Home and XP Pro) if so ask if you can borrow a copy,

For now turn on the PC and look for the message "Press X (whereX is a key) to enter setup or BIOS.

Go into BIOS and look for anything that shows the harddrive, it may be under the section "IDE Devices" or similar, if it shows up then the HD maybe OK, if it doesnt then the drive may be dead, in which case you may need a new drive.

Looking at the wider picture it may be best to take the PC to a shop, it depends on how savvy you are, the things you are going to need to do are..

Download the HD manufacturers test tools to test the drive (only applies if the drive shows in BIOS)

Obtain a copy of XP and if the drive is OK do an repair of XP

If the drive isnt showing in BIOS then it may need changing, it's simple to do if your OK with opening up the PC

Post back and rate your self on a 1 to 10 scale (where 1 is a totally PC unsure and 10 is a top rate IT technician) be honest, we wouldnt want you to do something that you may get wrong and cause further problems.

Regards

 

[yungmain23]

I'm trying to get ahold of an xp disk right now. I'm perfectly fine opening the computer up and doing whatever, I installed a second hard drive in the same computer like 7 months ago. If the hard drive is dead then is there any way to recover the data that was on that drive?

 

[tradebark]

I ran into this same problem on my gf's laptop..

Problem being that when you power it up, it goes into the VAIO "startup" screen, and then straight into a black screen with "No Operating System Detected." with a blinking cursor in front of it.

No prompts to go into BIOS.. No key seems to do anything at that point, and no opportunity to enter any kind of key to get into BIOS. Ctrl alt del does cause restart but that's about it.

I can only assume that it was caused by some sort of virus, unfortunately the user of the laptop for the past few months was an early-teens boy so we haven't the slightest idea what program it was.

Putting in a new windows cd does prompt installation though, but thought I'd bring it up.