Please help!

[stressed out]

Ok, i have posted several questions on this same problem and vehelpfulguy has indeed been very helpful and questioned my intelligence. Unfortunately i don't know much about pc's and am learning about partitions, formating etc.. as i go along.

My previous problem was that i had to wipe all partitions and install xp on C. I did manage to do this but not successfully... Now my pc tells me that no operating system has been found on any devices! Why does this say this? I know i installed xp again on C.

Thanks

[vehelpfulguy]

Stressed out, well done for keeping going. Very impressed by your perseverance.

Well now things may get complicated.

In your PC is something called your BIOS. This is a program that runs when you switch your PC on to verify that everything is OK (memory, CPU, fans, keyboard, mouse etc).

One of the things your BIOS does is look for an operating system.

Within your BIOS are settings of where to tell it to look.

This is usually diskette, hard disk and CD, and you choose the order it looks for them.

I seem to remember you have 2 hard disks, and Windows used to be on the other hard disk.

My guess is that the BIOS is looking on the OTHER hard disk for Windows and cannot find it.

Next append I will explain how to change it.

[vehelpfulguy]

The BIOS is slighly different on each PC so I cannot give you exact instructions.

When you start your PC up you will probably get a message on the screen which may say something like:

Press Delete to enter BIOS.

It is not always the delete key, it may be another key like F12.

The message only appears on the screen for a few seconds so be quick.

Once you are in the BIOS there will be an option like Boot or Boot Order.

Go into that, and if it lists both your hard disks make sure your "C" drive is the boot disk. It will not be called the C drive as the BIOS only knows it by its reference number so you will need to try to work out which disk is which.

DO NOT MAKE ANY OTHER CHANGES TO YOUR BIOS SETTINGS.

Once the correct disk is in first place then SAVE YOUR CHANGES and exit the BIOS.

Reboot or start up your PC and hopefully it should now go into Windows.

Good luck

[fo3nix]

I had the same error a few days ago (was messing about with GNU/Linux), and the fault was that the master boot record was corrupted.

stressed out: if vehelpfulguy's suggestions do not work, and you have the XP disc, can you try putting the disc in and seeing if the boot disc will load? (you should have the first boot device in your bios as the cd drive, and the second as your hard drive, ide0 perhaps).

[stressed out]

Thanks vehelpfulguy, i'll try that later on, i can't remember it saying delete to enter BIOS but then maybe i did'nt look close enough. I really hope it will work, i'm getting so peed off. Mostly cos i'm paying NTL for nothing.

fo3nix, evertytime i put the XP disk in it tries to install and then where it says press enter to install it justs tells me that there's no operating system.

Anyway, i will keep you posted. Fingers crossed it works.