no operating system

[gameybutcherboi]

can anyone tell me how to get back into windows xp ,on boot up it goes so far then tells me their is no operating sys ,their is no set up discs that came wit puter,has my hard drive crashed?and if it has can it be recovered?or can i connect another pc to it to view the c drive?
eric

[Roger]

Firstly check you haven't got a CD or Floppy disk in the drive.

Can it be recovered? Maybe, but you'd need an XP boot disk

Can i connect another pc? You can take the disk out and add it as a second disk on another machine to get the data off it

[gameybutcherboi]

how do i connect it to another pc??i suppose i need a double usb lead?do you mean hard drive when you say disc

[Roger]

Yes, you can't connect to it with a USB cable. You can with Macs, but that doesn't help you.
Did you check for a CD in?

Try booting in safe mode:

To reboot into safe mode
Restart your computer and as soon as it starts booting up again continuously tap F8. A menu should come up where you will be given the option to enter Safe Mode.

Did that work?

[gameybutcherboi]

yes roger i have tried everything,f8,f2,f12,still says no operating sys so i presume the h/d has crashed the question is can the data on the h/d be recovered by a pro ?

[Hawkeye]

Data recovery may be possible, the best way would be to connect it to another PC as a slave disk. This will let you see what is on the disc like you look at a CD/DVD. All you have to do then is copy your data to the hard drive of the pc you have connected to.

It may well be that the operating system has had a moment and a file has become corrupted. If you have data you want to recover do not attempt to reinstall XP as it will overwrite the entire disc.

[Shifty]

And, of course, make sure the PC you connect it to has bloody good anti-virus, just in case.

[gameybutcherboi]

yeah i thaught it was poss.thanks for reply

[Roger]

It's easy done, if the disk is still operating it would cost £60 ish, if it's dead, then it's a several hundred pound job.