So I've just come home after a few days away up north on doing the christmas rounds and turn on my desktop PC to find it's not working correctly. What happens is this;

Starts up and passes the bios screen, this is where I'd now expect to see the Windows XP logo and the loading bar but I get a black screen with message saying "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in Selected Boot device and press a key."

When I reset the PC I can enter the set up using F1 and make changes in the bios but at the moment I don't need to as I can't see anything wrong. Also, at the bios screen, and before I enter F1, I still have the option to press F10 and perform a recovery but when I do press F10 nothing happens and the PC boots up to the first message I received about Boot Devices etc etc.

I've also tried booting from factory supplied recovery discs but I then get an on screen error message of " Non-System disk or disk error".

I have now changed the motherboard, like for like, and all the problems still exist so am now thinking that the hard drive is knackered which has confused me somewhat as I thought I'd at least be able to boot from the factory recovery disks ?

when you start the PC can you actually hear the hard disk drive spinning or reading data? try booting without any floppy's or usb drives or cd in the cd-rom drive. Does the problem still exist? Try checking the cable on your hard drive, check if they're connected properly, or if uhave any spare IDE cables try to switch them and check if it boots. If none of this works, maybe the hard drive is damaged, or maybe it was formatted. Or maybe there are some bad sectors on the disk. Can you boot from CD?

Can't boot from CD, get the "Non system disk or Disk error message". All cables correctly fitted and problem still exists on brand new motherboard. No DVD's in drives on start and don't have a floppy drive. BIOS correctly recognising all drives, CPU and RAM.

Basically, I switched the PC off, went away for 4 days, came back and hey presto, dead pc.
Just thankful I've got my laptop as back-up

try this, place your xp cd in the drive, and set the bios up to boot from CD, and when you get to the setup screen try to select and option that says "repair current installation" or an option similar to that. If this doesnt work, than i gues you should format the hard drive and completely re-install XP.

I cannot boot from any CD/DVD ROM. I get the same error mesage "Non system disk or Disk error". I cannot re-format the hard drive either as I cannot get to the recovery/repair stage through the bios or by pressing F10 on start.

Is the BIOS set to boot the CD drive prior to the hard drive?

Also did the motherboard come with a setup CD?

Yes, the CD drive boots before the hard drive. The mobo didn't come with a setup CD.

What is the exact make & model & # of the computer?

As you mention the F10 Recovery it may well be that the CD's you have are not boot disks.

Can you install a floppy drive in order to run a boot disk? Also you could run a boot diagnostic for your hard drive but again it would be a floppy.

HP Pavillion t590 (uk).

I'll try to grab an external floppy today.

This is what I found from HP:

Pavillion t590 (uk).
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/p...&lang=en&cc=us

Recovering from recovery discs
Use the following steps to recover the PC from a set of recovery discs (either CDs or DVDs):
Before recovering, back up files from the My Documents folder and from other folders you may have created.
Disconnect all connected devices (such as the Personal Media Drive, USB drives, printer, and fax), remove media from drives, and remove any recently added internal hardware. Do not disconnect the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and power cord.
Turn on the PC and press the Esc key when the first logo screen appears.

Insert the first recovery disc into the top CD or DVD drive.
Use the Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys to select the CD or DVD drive containing the recovery disc, and press the Enter key to start.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...cname=bph07145

Other disc errors occur during the recovery process
If there are bad areas on the hard drive, errors can occur during recovery. Scanning the disk drive for errors can isolate these bad areas, so they do not interfere with the reading and writing of files. If Windows does not open, run chkdsk from the recovery console.
NOTE: If you have a recovery tools CD or a Windows XP recovery console CD, open the chkdsk utility from the recovery console instead of using the Windows steps in this section. For more information on using recovery console, refer to HP and Compaq Desktop PCs - Using a Recovery Console to Resolve Startup Issues

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...bph07144#N1156

With a floppy drive you can use the 6 floppy setup to enter the Recovery Console:
Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;314058
How to obtain Windows XP Setup boot disks
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310994