i am in desprate need of help here, i am on my dads laptop to post this, the main computer isn't booting up properly. What happens is that when i press the power switch it flickers to life, and goes to the black screen that it normally only stay on for a few seconds. But now, after the usual info in the box it is saying as follows::


searching for boot record from floppy.. not found
searching for boot record from IDE-0.. not found
searching for boot record from CD-ROM..<takes a minuter longer to process>.. not found
searching for boot record from BBS-0.. OK

Intel UNDI PXE-2.0 (build 082)
Copyright 1997-2000 intel corporation

for realtek RTL8139/8130/810x PCI
fast ethernet controller v2.12a (011210)

PXE-E61: media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOR: existing PXE ROM

searching for boot record from SCSI.. not found

boot failure
reboot and select proper device or insert boot media in selected boot device
press any key when ready_


i have opened up the side of the computer and it doesn't look as thought anything is loose/missing in the hardware side of things. Im not too sure what to do, i dont have the windows xp pro CD atm either, but i might be able to get hold of it by monday (my dad stupidly took it to work and someone has 'borrowed' it most likely, but he says he should be able to get it back. please help me guys an gals, thanks!

Chack that your IDE cables aren't loose again. From what is shown, I guess that the hard disk isn't plugged in. Chack the IDE connection at the motherboard, and at the disk, and also chack that the disk has power.

If everything is definately plugged in properly, then it is possible that the disk is dead, or that the PSU isn't supplying power to the drive. Also check the condition of the data and power cables.

Hopefully for you, something is just loose, or the IDE cable has been damaged. Anything else will be bringing you a lot of grief(?).

damn! checked all of the cables mentioned, both of the disks (we have two, one got messed up so we got another one, set the messed up one as slave and retrieved the info from it). i guess all i can do now is wait for the boot disk from my dad, see if that works. If not, i guess im just gonna have to wait till i have built my computer. Thanks for the help

If both your hard diskd aren't detected, then they probably aren't dead. If is unlikely that they both died at the same time. There could be a fault on the motherboard.

Boot to windows xp cd, goto recovery console, do 'fixmbr' 'fixboot'

too late, my dad shoved the windows xp cd in, clicked on install and now ive lost ALL of my data now, ah well, gonna rebuild the software from scratch then..... thanks for the help guys!!