error message 'operating system missing'

[granjan]

I am trying to find information for my nephew. He has an HP xt973
with XP Home installed. When he tried to boot up today he got a
black screen with the 'operating system missing'. I'm not sure if
he has the recovery disks that should have come with the
computer...I forgot to ask him but I will tomorrow. In the meantime
is there some advice you can give me so that I can help him? Can I
download a bootable disk to start it with? If so where is the best
place to do so? Any info appreciated.
Janice

 

[Daave]

I am trying to find information for my nephew. He has an HP xt973
with XP Home installed. When he tried to boot up today he got a
black screen with the 'operating system missing'. I'm not sure if
he has the recovery disks that should have come with the
computer...I forgot to ask him but I will tomorrow. In the meantime
is there some advice you can give me so that I can help him? Can I
download a bootable disk to start it with? If so where is the best
place to do so? Any info appreciated.
Janice

Make sure the floppy and cd drives are empty. I've seen that message if
I forget to eject a floppy disk and boot up with it still in the drive.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I am trying to find information for my nephew. He has an HP xt973
with XP Home installed. When he tried to boot up today he got a
black screen with the 'operating system missing'. I'm not sure if
he has the recovery disks that should have come with the
computer...I forgot to ask him but I will tomorrow. In the meantime
is there some advice you can give me so that I can help him? Can I
download a bootable disk to start it with? If so where is the best
place to do so? Any info appreciated.
Janice

You should first ask him what happened prior to this incident.

Here are a couple of diagnostic tools you could use:

a) Boot the machine with his WinXP CD, select Repair and
get into the Recovery Console. Does this work?

b) If he has a floppy drive, prepare a Win9x boot diskette
like so:
- Download & create a WinXP boot diskette from
www.bootdisk.com.
- Copy the file ntfs.exe (www.sysinternals.com) to this
diskette.
Boot his machine with this diskette, then run ntfsdos.exe.
Can you see his various files and folders?

 

[Gerry]

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?product=62749&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=uk

http://search.hp.com/gwukeng/query.html?lang=en&submit.x=10&submit.y=7&qt=HP+xt973&la=en&cc=uk


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[granjan]

Thanks all of you for your suggestions. I will let you know how it
goes.

|
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?product=62749&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=uk
|
|
http://search.hp.com/gwukeng/query.html?lang=en&submit.x=10&submit.y=7&qt=HP+xt973&la=en&cc=uk
|
|
| --
|
|
|
| Hope this helps.
|
| Gerry
| ~~~~
| FCA
| Stourport, England
| Enquire, plan and execute
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
| granjan wrote:
| > I am trying to find information for my nephew. He has an HP
xt973
| > with XP Home installed. When he tried to boot up today he got a
| > black screen with the 'operating system missing'. I'm not sure
if
| > he has the recovery disks that should have come with the
| > computer...I forgot to ask him but I will tomorrow. In the
meantime
| > is there some advice you can give me so that I can help him?
Can I
| > download a bootable disk to start it with? If so where is the
best
| > place to do so? Any info appreciated.
| > Janice
|
|

 

[granjan]

Thanks for all your suggestions. He got it running with the
'recovery console'. We never did figure out what happened to cause
the problem, but...doesn't matter now I guess.
Janice

|
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?product=62749&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=uk
|
|
http://search.hp.com/gwukeng/query.html?lang=en&submit.x=10&submit.y=7&qt=HP+xt973&la=en&cc=uk
|
|
| --
|
|
|
| Hope this helps.
|
| Gerry
| ~~~~
| FCA
| Stourport, England
| Enquire, plan and execute
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
| granjan wrote:
| > I am trying to find information for my nephew. He has an HP
xt973
| > with XP Home installed. When he tried to boot up today he got a
| > black screen with the 'operating system missing'. I'm not sure
if
| > he has the recovery disks that should have come with the
| > computer...I forgot to ask him but I will tomorrow. In the
meantime
| > is there some advice you can give me so that I can help him?
Can I
| > download a bootable disk to start it with? If so where is the
best
| > place to do so? Any info appreciated.
| > Janice
|
|