Any computer experts out there?

15 years ago

You need to give morte specific information......like the exact error message you're getting.Or what version of XP you have.
That said,there are a couple different ways to approach your problem.
You might be able to do a recovery from your manufacturers provided disks if you have some. Or they might have provided an OS disk, in which case you might be able to perform a recovery ( over the top ) install.

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john_kennedy 15 years ago

There are no recovery disks, there are no disk drives to put them in...lol!! It just says Operating System Not Found. It does this after the memory check.
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- KimW 15 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by john_kennedy
  
  There are no recovery disks, there are no disk drives to put them in...lol!! It just says Operating System Not Found. It does this after the memory check.
  
  You said you had an USG (I'm assuming you meant USB) optical drive, this is usually a cd or dvd drive.If it's not,I'm confused to what it is.
  As Askloz said, there should be "removable" in the boot options menu.
  
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askloz

15 years ago

Delete the boot sector... put in a floopy disk into A drive, make sure you can boot into DOS, find the boot sector ini file and create a new one... then it will boot up again

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askloz

15 years ago

Opps, no floppy? hmm, try pressing F8 and boot up into Prompt mode...

If you can boot up from USB, try selecting "REMOVABLE" in the bios to boot up from USB flash drive... but make sure you get into DOS...

then CD (change directory) back to C drive... and locate the bootsector.ini file ( think that's what it's called), delete it, and create a new one.

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Michael Motley

15 years ago

If you wait until you see the bios splash screen, tap f12 repeatedly and you should get an alternate boot menu. If so, tell it to boot from usb/cd/dvd device. If not, go to your bios and look in your boot order, remove everything but a usb device. put the disk in the drive, reboot. Its going to give you the option to install the o.s. or repair, pick repair. after the repair console loads, you will be at a c prompt with a flashing cursor. checkdisk should probably fix the issue. type chkdsk /r on the command line, press enter.

If that doesnt work, try /fixboot or /fixmbr commands from the command line. If those don't work, it might not be salvageable and may need a reinstall.

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askloz

15 years ago

LOL, not necessarily the case, it all depends on what bios you're using. Some use F9, some use F11, some use F12, some use F5.

Before giving advice, leave it to someone who knows what they are talking about. Maybe even a couple of people who have actually ran successful PC company's perhaps?:rolleyes:

Originally Posted by Michael Motley

If you wait until you see the bios splash screen, tap f12 repeatedly and you should get an alternate boot menu.

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Michael Motley

15 years ago

Originally Posted by askloz

LOL, not necessarily the case, it all depends on what bios you're using. Some use F9, some use F11, some use F12, some use F5.

Before giving advice, leave it to someone who knows what they are talking about. Maybe even a couple of people who have actually ran successful PC company's perhaps?:rolleyes:

Yeah, I'm used to f12 because I work at Dell. But please, dont let me stop someone who works for a 'successful' computer company.

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KimW 15 years ago

Originally Posted by Michael Motley

....I work at Dell. ..........

You have my sympathy.
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john_kennedy

15 years ago

OK, thanks all.

I meant USB CD Drive.

I can get to the boot menu and from there it shows the XP loading screen which runs for a bit and then a really fast blue screen and back to the boot menu. I cannot get into safe mode at all. Cannot boot to a prompt either. Booting from a CD is not an option. It will only allow me to boot from floppy or the hard drive.

John

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KimW

15 years ago

Meaning you cannot boot to a USB cd or floppy drive?

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Michael Motley

15 years ago

It doesnt give you the option to boot from usb either in the alternate boot menu or in the boot order menu?

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john_kennedy

15 years ago

It will attempt to boot from the floppy, but I don't have a boot disk(s) which I believe is actually 6 disks. I was lucky enough to find one floppy here!

This isn't an emergency, this is like my backup to my backup to my backup computer. I'd probably go back to quill and parchment before I ever used it for anything serious. I have it so I can take it along when I am out on the motorcycle for exended trips.

Thanks again for all the ideas.

John

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askloz

15 years ago

Boot discs do not contain 6 disks mate, it's ONE floopy that has a boot sector on it, command.sys, etc.

any way, all this is already on the system, you just need to get into DOS, once you do, find the boot sector file... it's a ini extension... delete it. it's this file that is corrupted.

I had a customer the other week with the same problem. All I did was remove the boot sector and and created a new one.

locate

boot.ini

when found, type:

delete boot.ini

I can't remember off the top off my head, but there's a file there called boot.exe or something, you need to run that file, and it will create a new boot.ini file for you.

That's the short way of doing it.

the long method is this way
How to create a bootable floppy disk for an NTFS or FAT partition in Windows XP

Or if you want, you can send it to my address and I'll fix it for you. I'm in North Carolina at the moment... I wont charge ya other than the expenses for the shipment back to you.

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KimW

15 years ago

askloz,
What he is actually referring to are XP install disks,which is a set of six floppies.
What you are referring to is a 98 or ME boot disk.
John,
Of course if you get to where you need it up and running fast, FedEx it to me and I can probably have it up and running and back to you in about 48 hours.

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askloz

15 years ago

No, I am not.

A boot disc is either for win 95, 98, 2000, XP, or vista.

A boot disk contains dos 6 or 7 on it. But as I said, he doesn't really need it, it's already on the system, he just needs to boot up into Dos... if he can't do it, then he needs to create one off his working pc so he can boot up into dos on his other, then create the new boot.ini file. and he'll be fine.

I do know, I'm a PC Engineer and have my own business fixing pc's

Originally Posted by KimW

askloz,
What he is actually referring to are XP install disks,which is a set of six floppies.
What you are referring to is a 98 or ME boot disk.
John,
Of course if you get to where you need it up and running fast, FedEx it to me and I can probably have it up and running and back to you in about 48 hours.

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KimW

15 years ago

I just noticed we both offered to fix it.
Warriors helping Warriors, what a great bunch we are!

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askloz 15 years ago

LOL, shame there wasn't two of them, could have a race to see who fixes it first.

I'd get it fixed in less than 15 minutes since I know what the problem is. And ship it back out the same day.

When I did this before for another customer, they were in front of me talking to my business partner and he said we'd have it fixed also within 48hrs, I told him not to worry that I already fixed it... when the customer left (we didn't charge them), he spat chips at me cos we could of charged $50-75 just for fixing it...lol

oh hum

Originally Posted by KimW

I just noticed we both offered to fix it.
Warriors helping Warriors, what a great bunch we are!
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KimW

15 years ago

Actually, until I had to close my business due to health reasons, I too had my own business building and fixing PCs. And networking and everything else.

As far as the boot disks, its not worth arguing over,I think we both are correct,I am just more brief in my explanations.
Either way,the end result would be the gentleman would get a working laptop.

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askloz

15 years ago

Hehee, too much stress mate? I know the feeling

I had 8 business in Australia, sold those, and 3 in the UK, sold those too. Too many things going missing, money going a loot, couldn't be a**ed with it any more.

Oh hum

Originally Posted by KimW

Actually, until I had to close my business due to health reasons, I too had my own business building and fixing PCs. And networking and everything else.

As far as the boot disks, its not worth arguing over,I think we both are correct,I am just more brief in my explanations.
Either way,the end result would be the gentleman would get a working laptop.

back at ya bud

cheers

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KimW

15 years ago

Originally Posted by askloz

Hehee, too much stress mate? I know the feeling

cheers

Too much stress? Nahh, I wish that was the case. See my sig? The end of o6/beginning of 07 I was diagnosed with end stage kidney disease. I have to do dialysis 6 days a week,and need a kidney transplant.

I have to admit, it has given me a whole new perspective on life.

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seasoned

15 years ago

Originally Posted by KimW

Too much stress? Nahh, I wish that was the case. See my sig? The end of o6/beginning of 07 I was diagnosed with end stage kidney disease. I have to do dialysis 6 days a week,and need a kidney transplant.

I have to admit, it has given me a whole new perspective on life.

WOW, I am actually helping a big dialysis service provider/vendor absorb all their merged companies! I'm sorry to hear about your plight.

Askloz,

Maybe you could be a little bit more humble.

John,

You can't actually boot up into windows. Previous versions of windows and, to a degree, XP, DO have MSDOS as well. BESIDES, windows is SO complicated, that it doesn't make much sense to bring it up to fix a problem like this. In MOST cases, any version of MSDOS will allow you to fix the boot.ini file, or whatever, to improve your chances. It is a shame I am not home now. My first laptop, which I still have, is a fujitsu lifebook. It may even be the same kind you have. MINE had no USB ports, and had a CD and floppy though. It is FaT and HEAVY also!

AND, though the windows distribution had several disks, it DID have a DOS boot disk, that could start the whole install.

Steve

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askloz

15 years ago

Originally Posted by seasoned

Askloz,

Maybe you could be a little bit more humble.

What the heck are you talking about?

get off my bloody back will ya. I offered help to John, and showed my sincere wishes that Kim got better... how the heck is that not being humble?

Originally Posted by seasoned

John,
In MOST cases, any version of MSDOS will allow you to fix the boot.ini file, or whatever, to improve your chances.

That's what I said.. gee. And Windows is NOT complicated, it's only complicated to those who don't know how to use the machine properly.

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seasoned

15 years ago

Originally Posted by askloz

What the heck are you talking about?

get off my bloody back will ya. I offered help to John, and showed my sincere wishes that Kim got better... how the heck is that not being humble?

That's what I said.. gee. And Windows is NOT complicated, it's only complicated to those who don't know how to use the machine properly.

WHY don't you read the CONTEXT! MSDOS SITS THERE! It WAITS for a command, and obeys it! SIMPLE! It uses a little bit of memory.

WINDOWS does NOT sit there and wait patiently! I don't care if you have a 100000IQ and a 9999EB computer running at 9999Thz!(And YEAH, I KNOW nobody has an IQ that high. NO OS I have ever heard of even claims to support that much memory(Is there even that much memory on the planet?), and Intel is even having trouble making a 1Ghz(I'm talking REAL speed here) CPU, and may not ever even be able to claim that they are developing a 1Thz CPU! ) It is STILL complicated! It is HUGE, uses "virtual memory"(at least that is what M/S likes to call it), and has queues running ALL OVER THE PLACE! Graphics card out of wack? Mouse on the fritz? mouse key stuck? High mem error? certain CPU problems, like protected mode? Disk problems? ALL will play havok with windows, and possibly not touch dos AT ALL! I don't mean complicated as in "hard to understand". I mean complicated as in doing WAY too much and being like a sort of rube goldsberg contraption. HECK, MOST O/S, like DOS, simply send ONE byte to a character generator, and the character appears. WINDOWS draws it as a GRAPHIC! It is FINE for a GUI and handling graphic display, but for fixing a problem with it's boot disk, it is like trying to use a cars bumper(while attached on the car) to drive a nail into a wall, by crashing into the nail with the car. WHY wait for a system(that uses the drive to work) to boot up(which requires the disk drive), to fix the drive?

Heck, I work on computers for a living also. From the old comodore/atari/apple to IBM PC to they largest HP, DEC, IBM(rs6000 and some others), sun, SGI, etc...

steve

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john_kennedy

15 years ago

The single disk is actually referred to as the MSDOS Startup Disk. For some strange reason, I am unable to format a disk with Windows running under VMWare. Not my day!

John

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askloz

15 years ago

oh sh*t, really, sorry to hear about that bud...

Dude, you must have some strong will power... a close friend of mine who's a forex student of mine, husband has been on dialysis for ages, i dont know where he gets the inner strength from... I've seen the sh*t he's had to go through just to make sure he wakes up the next day...

I hope you find a transplant soon bro.

My best wishes go out to ya

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blm2007

15 years ago

I have no idea about this but the best idea would be to take it to a computer repair shop and have it checked.

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Michael Motley

15 years ago

Thanks. i need it sometimes

nah..its not too bad. I work in the workstation/server section. This is the expensive high end hardware and i generally only talk to actual trained network people. Its really a rare occasion that I talk to end users

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KimW

15 years ago

That parts probably not too bad then.
One Warrior here has written a report on how (end users) can get good support from Dell.
It's funny in a sad way.

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Michael Motley

15 years ago

Actually, the end user support isn't bad. Most of the consumer hardware is handled in india. Generally, the Indian techs really aren't all that bad from a tech standpoint, they do seem knowledgeable, and apparently they have the education. Their short coming seems to be the ability to establish a rapport. U.S. customers like to b.s., Indian techs dont deviate from their scripts

There are good and bad in all techs, but overall the guys in mumbai are decent techs if you can get by their assault on the english language

.

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KimW

15 years ago

Actually it's the end user support that is terrible.
This statement is interesting:"Their short coming seems to be the ability to establish a rapport."
Seems that would be in the top two needed skills.
We could argue this point over and over and neither would change our position.
But I can tell you this, many of my customers wanted to pay me to call and deal with the support line because it was just too damn frustrating for them.
By the way, this is true with most support, not just Dell.
Verizon is a close second. Comcast is in third. Most of their support ,from my experience, is located in Canada, so the communication gap isn't so large.
You say India techs won't deviate from the script. This is true, and probably their second largest fault, behind the language barrier.

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seasoned

15 years ago

Originally Posted by KimW

Actually it's the end user support that is terrible.
This statement is interesting:"Their short coming seems to be the ability to establish a rapport."
Seems that would be in the top two needed skills.
We could argue this point over and over and neither would change our position.
But I can tell you this, many of my customers wanted to pay me to call and deal with the support line because it was just too damn frustrating for them.
By the way, this is true with most support, not just Dell.
Verizon is a close second. Comcast is in third. Most of their support ,from my experience, is located in Canada, so the communication gap isn't so large.
You say India techs won't deviate from the script. This is true, and probably their second largest fault, behind the language barrier.

I agree with Michael Motley on only ONE thing! They don't deviate from the script. You might as well be dealing with a FAQ on a website! In fact, I would PREFER a FAQ!

HECK, for almost the past 30 years or so one of my pet peeves is that they generally don't have tech support. They merely moved the customer support in and renamed them.

comcast is a good example. I NEVER had problems with @HOME! When THEY went bankrupt, comcast ALWAYS had problems(same account, line, presumably hardware!)! EVENTUALLY, comcast in the US would let me talk to people in Canada, and THEY would solve the problem. They almost always had a problem with the MODEMS ID. It didn't matter whether it was theirs or mine. And only the people in CANADA seemed to be able to detect it and correct it.

And WHO calls a tech support line with the desire to "B.S."?

Steve

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Any computer experts out there?

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