Booting

[forwindri]

When this computer starts I get the message, Non-System disk or disk error - Replace and strike any key when ready. It was starting ok before this with no problems. What happen?

[FridayAvenger]

I'm going to assume that you don't have a CD or floppy disk inserted into any of your drives during the boot process. If this assumption is wrong, simply remove the offending disk and the problem is gone.

You might want to check a few things before you try anything drastic. Mainly going into BIOS and seeing if lists your hard drive, checking to see that no wires somehow got knocked loose from the hard drive. Basic troubleshooting. Obviously if a connection looks loose, tighten it and try again. If everything turns out fine and there's still trouble, try using a boot disk and then checking your hard drive for command.com and other system files. Make sure they're not corrupt. If that's fine and you have a Norton Utilities Emergency Boot Disk or ZIP Rescue Disk handy, boot off that and use NDD.exe, the Norton Disk Doctor diagnostic tool. Don't have Norton? Not a problem, most Windows boot disks include ScanDisk which is "almost" as reliable. If they don't find any errors and nothing else seems to work, you can attempt to repair the master boot record. I think the command was fdisk /mbr or something like that but read my closing note first.

If all else fails, set the drive jumper to slave, set up another hard disk, back up all your important files then wipe the drive and start fresh.

On a closing note, use commands like Fdisk and format as a LAST RESORT ONLY! You'll lose ALL saved data by doing this but in turn, it'll usually make the drive work if the problem is software related. Also, if you don't know how to set up a fresh drive, learn to do so first.

I hope that advice has been of some help to you. Good luck.

[confus-ed]

This could be lots of things ! From a loose wire, or failing disk right through to a virus .... don't start with any formatting just yet ....

Do you have a boot cd for whatever version of (pressumably) windoze ?

[forwindri]

I tried everything that Friday Avenger suggested except the fdisk/mbr. Will try this later. There is no virus because it is not online and nothing has been used on it yet. My daughter has this computer in another state and is shipping it to me. If I set up another harddrive with the same motherboard as her computer and have her put it in her computer, will this work instead of shipping back and forward. All this shipping can't be good.

[Kineda]

What version of windows are you using? if its 9x you could try booting to a 98 boot disk and see if you can read the drive, if you can try sys c: from an a: prompt .. your boot files might just be corrupted