XP Home help please!

[Dick Dastardly]

Been given a Time lap top thats loaded with WindowsXP home edition.Every time I try to start it up it just comes up with "Operating System not found"

 

Any ideas what I can do? Please keep it really simple! I know only how to turn it on and press keys!!

Edited November 24, 2006 by BUDGIE

[Dick Dastardly]

Oh I forgot to mention I can have my old lap top on line but cant put both on or use phone as Im on dial up.

[Slap]

I take it that you don't get as far as the XP screen?

 

It's possible that it's trying to boot from the wrong drive maybe?

 

Can you give a more thorough description of what happens when you turn it on? ie. what screens it goes through.

[chesters1]

check theres not a disk in the floppy drive or cd drive,if not then you need to borrow a startup disk from someone ,that will let you see the hard disk but i suspect the drives been formatted and you will have to reinstall XP ,hopefully it has a cd/dvd drive for this purpose.

unfortunately playing in dos isnt for the pc err newbie

a win98 start up disk disk will do fine for seeing the hard disk even better a XP cd which "may" be able to fix it but probably just moan your version is different to it.

dont get your hopes up you will probably be reinstalling xp its not easy to fix things remotely

 

thinking a bit harder being its a branded machine (does time exist anymore?) out on the www somewhere (and you maybe searching for ever) you may be able to find a downloadable setup disk for it ,branded machines mostly have a hidden part of the disk where everything breakable by the user is hidden out of harms way,a setup disk restores the machine to its factory settings

make sure the correct download is found for the correct machine

Edited November 24, 2006 by chesters1

[kempo]

(does time exist anymore?)

 

it sure does its 22:03 right now,,,

 

 

you asked for that 1

[Dick Dastardly]

Thanks for the replies.Was able to get in with a 98 start up disk I had in the house.Managed to get it to "Scandisk" but it just instantly came up as completed and no errors! I cant believe it checked the C drive that quick.Still got the same "Operating System not found" message.Decided its all a bit to complicated for me so will have to bite the bullet and get some one to look at it.

 

Thanks to everyone all the same.

[Andy_1984]

might sound a bit stupid but check the hard drive is connected properly, had seen this message once before when i took out the hard drive, if not dare i say it get a copy of xp

[Dick Dastardly]

might sound a bit stupid but check the hard drive is connected properly, had seen this message once before when i took out the hard drive, if not dare i say it get a copy of xp

 

Cheers Andy.It is indeed as though the "C" Drive just doesnt exist/isnt being found.If I listen carefully when turning on you can hear a faint intermitant "whirring" sound as though its trying to turn but keeps stopping.Im going to get a friend whose an engineer to look at it as it may indeed be a hardwarevas opposed to software problem.

[Andy_1984]

try reconnecting the hard drive, its usualy located in the same place as the battery but some hard drives might not be located in the same place on other harddrives, just a case of looking without unscrewing anything.

[corydoras]

Thanks for the replies.Was able to get in with a 98 start up disk I had in the house.Managed to get it to "Scandisk" but it just instantly came up as completed and no errors! I cant believe it checked the C drive that quick.Still got the same "Operating System not found" message.Decided its all a bit to complicated for me so will have to bite the bullet and get some one to look at it.

 

Thanks to everyone all the same.

When you boot up with a 98 boot disk it creates a RAM disk. This RAM disk is labelled after the last HDD. Since your machine cannot see the HDD the RAM disk was drive C: This is why it finished checcking in seconds. If you boot from the 98 disk again and this time run fdisk I will bet a pound to a penny that it will compalin that your system has no HDD installed. The whirring and clicking that you are hearing makes me suspect that the interface cable is not seated properly or that the motor that makes the disk platters spin is dead or dying or that the voice coil that moves the read/write head is dead or dying.

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings mate.