where to start to fix this?

[jfloyd]

HP computer with windows upgrade to xp
turn the machine on and it says
"disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter"
put in the HP recovery disk and it says
"error - the hard disk was not found!"
if you have a hard disk installed, the cables may be loose or the disk may not be initilized........
this is daughters computer, so I dont know what happened. cables are not loose though.
any help appreciated
thanks, jim

[Carl]

take that box to a local PC shop....let them straighten it out...


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[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Check and see if there is a floppy disk in the floppy drive.
If there is, remove it and try booting up.

--
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Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
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"jfloyd" > wrote in message:
...

| HP computer with windows upgrade to xp
| turn the machine on and it says
| "disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter"
| put in the HP recovery disk and it says
| "error - the hard disk was not found!"
| if you have a hard disk installed, the cables may be loose or the disk may not be initilized........
| this is daughters computer, so I dont know what happened. cables are not loose though.
| any help appreciated
| thanks, jim

[jfloyd]

nope no floppy in drive

[Interrogative]

"jfloyd" > wrote in message
...
> HP computer with windows upgrade to xp
> turn the machine on and it says
> "disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter"
> put in the HP recovery disk and it says
> "error - the hard disk was not found!"
> if you have a hard disk installed, the cables may be loose or the disk may
not be initilized........
> this is daughters computer, so I dont know what happened. cables are not
loose though.
> any help appreciated
> thanks, jim

Well this may be a problem for you. It MAY be that you have an unmountable
boot volume which is easily repaired by booting off the XP CD and fixing the
boot block from there. As you probably don't have an XP CD per se you are in
trouble with that assuming the HD is working.

If the HD is working but not available to the system, it needs to be set up
properly. I suggest going to www.bootdisk.com and downloading a Win 98
floppy boot disk image and writing that to a floppy. Now boot off that
floppy and run fdisk in order to set up the HD if physically working even
though not available to the system as yet. Now that you have done that, you
can use Format from the same floppy after a reboot in order to make it
available to the system. Now shove your HP disk in and try a recovery and
see what happens. It should just work from there. If it doesn't, it's time
for another HD.