[lady moonlilly]

I have a compaq running windows xp that will not start, when the computer starts up it gives the message
"non system disk or disk error, replace and strike any key when ready". I have no idea what was done to the computer, it's my fathers, he called and said it wasn't working and he had no idea why. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could do to get this working again? I can't get to safe mode to even start it that way. Thanks.

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check for a floppy disk in the floppy drive

[gerryf]

check for a floppy disk in the floppy drive

[lady moonlilly]

Yes, I checked that, there is no disk in the computer.

[gerryf]

Compaq...probably do not have a WindowsXP cd, then, correct?

[lady moonlilly]

Right, no windowsXP cd, i tried using the one for my dell, but that didn't work

[gerryf]

It is likely you have a damaged master boot record or damaged boot sector.

To repair this problem, you need to access the recovery console to do this:

1. Start your computer with a bootable recovery console (see below), or for others who stumble on this, use the Windows CD-ROM if your computer can start from the CD-ROM drive.

2. When the Welcome to Setup screen appears, press R to select the repair option.

3. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the Windows installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console.

4. Type the administrator password when you are prompted to do so.

NOTE: If no administrator password exists (XP HOME does not have a password), press ENTER.

5A. At the command prompt, type
FIXMBR
and then press ENTER.

REBOOT.



6. At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER to restart your computer.


If the computer comes up, great, if not, repeat above through 4, and this time, instead of FIXMBR,

5B. At the command prompt, type
FIXBOOT
and then press ENTER.
6. At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER to restart your computer.



---------------------------------------------------------

Note: If you do not have a windows xp disk, download the following file: rc.iso

Now, go to Alex Feinman 's website and download the Isorecorder power toy. Install it on a working machine and reboot. Place a blank cd in your cd-burner and then right click rc.iso, and choose burn to cd from the context menu. You can use any cd burning program that supports ISO burning, but each is different and I cannot necessarily direct you on how each program works.

Place this cd in the non-working computer and reboot. You should boot to recovery console. If you do not, you need to set your cd-rom as the first boot device in your PCs BIOS.

[lady moonlilly]

I followed the steps and this is what happened:

FIXMBR -

message appeared:

This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record. FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed. This could cause all partition on the current hard disk to become inaccessible. If you are having problems accessing your drive do not continue.


------

Fix boot cannot find the system drive, or the drive specified is not valid.


-----

When I turned the computer back on I got the message "invalid partition table"


Other than that the disk worked great, the windows setup program copied alot of files to the computer.

[gerryf]

So, did you proceed after FIXMBR, or did you not run it?

You generally get the second message if you do not run Fixmbr and try to run foxboot on a bad drive.

Fixmbr writes the master boot record, fixes (or sometimes overwrites) the partition table

Fixboot, writes the boot sector to the boot partition (sometime the only partition)

When you start your PC, your computer checks the MBR for the boot partition location, passes control to the boot partition boot sector, then loads up.

This is grim sounding. The non standard or invalid boot message is alarming. Was someone trying to install another OS (like a linux distro), when all this occured?

[lady moonlilly]

Yes I did run the FIXMBR, that is when the message about invalid partition table came up when I rebooted. As far as I know no one tried to add anything to the computer. It's my parents computer and its main use is playing card games (from a disk) and looking up recipes. My father had called me about the problem but all he said was that it wasn't working and he had no idea what he did. Is there some old DOS command that fixes the partition problem?

[gerryf]

ugh....was too tired last night

fixboot c:

now reboot

[lady moonlilly]

I'm at work now, I will try this tonight when I get home and let you know what happens!

[lady moonlilly]

I ran the fixboot c:

The message I get now when the computer starts up is:

NTLDR is missing
press any key to restart

when I ran fixboot, I got a message saying the boot was fixed.