Techy Question... Re PC booting up

Why does my PC now bring up "operating system not found" when it loads, but it's fine if i press the power off/on again?

 

Could be your hard drive failing. How old is it?

 

bought 30/08/04 so less than 4 yrs

 

shouldn't be failing at that age. Have you installed any new cd drives or anything like that?

 

Nothing added/played with or anything... only started on Monday!

Not sure if a system restore would sort it?

 

Its worth a shot. Could be a virus causing the problem.

 

UPDATE!!

As of today my Computer has given up the ghost and will no longer find a OS!

Now.. Do i get a internal drive? or can an external drive work as well (and be larger/cheaper)

I'd need to install XP on whichever i get but can an external drive be used as a bootable drive?

 

RE: UPDATE!!

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USB hard drives only work on newer computers, best to test it first somehow. However i'd recommend an internal drive if its going to be used as the main drive. External ones will require power for anything bigger than 250gb and you can get upto 1tb internal drives at the moment.
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RE: UPDATE!!

It could have been a boot sector virus, i would do a reinstall before going for a new drive. if you have a restore disk it will reformat the drive, but if the operating system is ghosted on the original drive then chances are you have lost that,

Not the end of the world though, borrow a windows disk (XP Vista or whatever) run that, let it format the hard drive and install using your original number on the side of trhe computer. You only have to worry about drivers then. but with luck a largesr majority should be installed with windows, just get someone to download the others for you.

Let me know what your system is and i will tell you what drivers you need.

 

RE: UPDATE!!

Tried that t'other day.

It couldnt reinstall as it couldnt find a drive to install on! :S

Any othe ideas

 

So check which type of Hard drive it is

Be it SATA or PATA IDE . Big connector on back PATA get off to Maplins or Icon on Sheffield road and swap it out. Then install.

 

RE: So check which type of Hard drive it is

Ta, Was going to call icon anyway.

Only thing is that i cannot find an XP cd for the computer :S it has a XP sticker on the back but i didnt get the cd (have one for the software but not XP)
I do have an XP Cd from a laptop tho but it's a different make - would it matter?

 

RE: So check which type of Hard drive it is

If you have XP on then you need an XP Disk if you have XP pro then you need that disk, but the important bit is the serial number, your legal with the one you have,,,,,,, well, Microsoft from upon it but you paid for it originally its just not on the same hard drive,

If you don't have one borrow one.

 

Be careful with the authenitcation sticker on your computer, the serials provided on them dont always work.