Hello, I have the above machine and it was becoming unstable, so I thought I would simply reload xp....(in hindsight - a hideous idea). Basically, after the initial reload of XP the system showed an error along the lines of "error in partition cannot continue". When I restarted the laptop, an error message "error loading operating system" appears.....I can f10 (bios - but does not facilitate DOS operation) and f12 which is a Network Boot up option. I have tried starting the XP disk in the drive as well but get the same error. I do have a external floppy drive but not sure if it works or not....I have tried to create a MS Dos boot floppy disk but it would not read - "disk I/O error - replace the disk" (I created this from another machine)....I don't know how to create one on CD. I was lead to believe by someone that if I could get dos up and running then I can run a scandisk....and then I should be able to run the XP Pro disk after that.
Any help will be much appreciated....if I can resurrect this laptop it be dedicated to running data and ftp for my sons weather station.
Thank you
Hey
try this:insert the xp disk go into bios,make the boot sequence to detect the cd rom drive (dvd drive) first.press enter when asked to boot from cd.
if all goes well first do a windows repair
thanks - but tried that a number of times and same error "error unable to locate operating system"
I'm wondering if utilising the Network Boot option is a possibility? but I don't know how to use a network boot?
Further update
the bios does not allow for DOS start up, and it wouldn't boot from the XP Disk
Someone suggested that I load a DOS start up disk and then run a scandisk from dos and then boot from xp disk.
Well I had no luck with the dos start up disk (read error from the floppy drive) but I found a http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ (details of contents on this link) boot disk....I was successful in getting this disk to boot.
But, now I it appears from dos that the only drives I have available is A, Q (RAM), T (CD Drive???) - no C drive ( I have tried every other letter in the alphabet).
I could run "Dariks boot and nuke" software http://dban.sourceforge.net/ (from the ultimatebootcd ) that would appear to wipe everything and maybe I can just boot from the xp disk after - this is my question to you - can I wipe the hard drive and start all over again? (is this step feasible or foolish?)
That is a alternative option,however you said when trying to boot from cd you get the same error so then that wouldn't be in hands reach for now.
Further more,you should have a look at your hard drive.see if you can get hold of another hard drive(for testing) and then see if you can install a OS on it.
??
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