Originally Posted by hillbilyswife

i don't remember if i did or not.

someone mentioned that i may have lost my bios? i don't know what that is.

i check the floppy drive there is no floppy in it
any other suggestions?

you know when your computer first starts it lights up the cdrom drive and the floppy drive. well my computer light comes on with the cdrom drive for a second but the floppy drive that doesn't light up at all

Bad floppy drive, hit the f8 key when booting as Orphelia suggested and see if you can get to the bios set up screen, if you can , set the boot order for cdrom first, hard drive second, floppy third...worst case scenario: you buy a new hard drive, install windows on it, then slave your old drive and boot with the new one, if the new OS can see the old drive, your data is probably still there and all you will need to do is move it to the new drive...

ok i tried tapping the delete very fast and i still get the operating system cannot be found. i tried tapping the esc and i get the compaq logo and then a black screen with a white blinking line.
anymore suggestions?

when i shut down the computer with the on/off button it shuts down instantly because it won't load anything to begin with.

Originally Posted by hillbilyswife

ok i tried tapping the delete very fast and i still get the operating system cannot be found. i tried tapping the esc and i get the compaq logo and then a black screen with a white blinking line.
anymore suggestions?

when i shut down the computer with the on/off button it shuts down instantly because it won't load anything to begin with.

Before hitting the F8 key......you may have a keyboard that needs you to first click the F-Lock....do that fast, and the F8 fast as soon as you attempt boot up.

I did not see if you answered Jazzman about having a floppy in the drive? If so...take it out...any disk not set to Boot from BIOS at this stage will give you the result you are getting.....

ok i tried that and it didn't work. i don't have a disk in the floppy

Originally Posted by hillbilyswife

ok i tried that and it didn't work. i don't have a disk in the floppy

Do you have a CD ROM in the drive? If so, at this stage....take it out until you have set the BIOS to boot from it......

no there is no cdrom in the cd drive.
how do i boot it now?

Originally Posted by hillbilyswife

no there is no cdrom in the cd drive.
how do i boot it now?

Try the steps we have suggested above to get into your BIOS.

If others think it might be worth resetting your BIOS, it might be best to ask here.:P

I take no responibility for what you might do to your PC.....so please...ask questions on forum....:takecall:

now that i've tried all that has been suggested. does anyone know how i can reset my bios?

my computer states "operating system not found on any devices. press any key to try again" i've done that nothing works. what i have tried so far is in these messeges.

You will have to either do a repair install from the XP Cd or install windows on a second drive as I suggested and set the old drive as a slave and see if you can access and copy the data...

whats an xp cd? and the only other drive i have is my cd writer. how do i get it to load on another drive. when i put a cd in the cdrom drive you can hear it running it just isn't doing anything.