Non-system disk or disk error

[Guest]

I was cleaning my PC...ie: Disk Defrag...Disk Clean up, etc...as I believed I
had some malware/spyware on my PC as an BHO..anyway..
I went to restart my PC and when it looked as if it were sdtarting in the
normal fashion before the Win XP Log On screen appears, I suddenly see this
BLACK screen with these words on it:

Non-system disk or disk error
Replace and strike any key when ready

I tried to do a repair through Recovery Consol, as well as run a DISK ERROR
CHECK, but again, when I try to restart my PC (reboot) I keep getting the
same message and black screen. I am able to boot up and start windopws using
my Reinstallation CD. (Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition)
I have NEVER had this issue before and am very puzzled.
Any help to recover and or repair this issue would be greatly appreciated.
Oh, BTW..I am NOT very PC savvy, and unless I have STEP BY STEP instructions
to do anything, am leary of going into the BIOS, etc...
Thanks so much for your time.
Apeke

 

[GHalleck]

I was cleaning my PC...ie: Disk Defrag...Disk Clean up, etc...as I believed I
had some malware/spyware on my PC as an BHO..anyway..
I went to restart my PC and when it looked as if it were sdtarting in the
normal fashion before the Win XP Log On screen appears, I suddenly see this
BLACK screen with these words on it:

Non-system disk or disk error
Replace and strike any key when ready

I tried to do a repair through Recovery Consol, as well as run a DISK ERROR
CHECK, but again, when I try to restart my PC (reboot) I keep getting the
same message and black screen. I am able to boot up and start windopws using
my Reinstallation CD. (Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition)
I have NEVER had this issue before and am very puzzled.
Any help to recover and or repair this issue would be greatly appreciated.
Oh, BTW..I am NOT very PC savvy, and unless I have STEP BY STEP instructions
to do anything, am leary of going into the BIOS, etc...
Thanks so much for your time.
Apeke

Let's do something very simple. Is there a floppy disk drive? Is
a floppy diskette in the drive when the computer starts? If yes,
then remove the floppy diskette and re-boot.

 

[Guest]

Let's do something very simple. Is there a floppy disk drive? Is
a floppy diskette in the drive when the computer starts? If yes,
then remove the floppy diskette and re-boot.

(She replies with her face beet red...) My husband had been writing up a
resume and saving it on FLOPPY DISK...so the answer is YES. There was a DISK
in the drive that he failed to remove when finished..
Wow..
How much one little thing can darn near casue a heart attack to someone
whose a PC novice..
Thanks for the help...
Peace,
Apeke

 

[Poprivet]

Let's do something very simple. Is there a floppy disk drive? Is
a floppy diskette in the drive when the computer starts? If yes,
then remove the floppy diskette and re-boot.

lol, that was a great catch, G! That's a step that's so often and so easily
overlooked.

Pop`

 

[Pegasus]

(She replies with her face beet red...) My husband had been writing up a
resume and saving it on FLOPPY DISK...so the answer is YES. There was a
DISK
in the drive that he failed to remove when finished..
Wow..
How much one little thing can darn near casue a heart attack to someone
whose a PC novice..
Thanks for the help...
Peace,
Apeke

Saving files on floppy disks is asking for trouble. They are
notoriously unreliable. Much, much better to save them on
the hard disk and have a backup copy on a flash disk
that is kept well away from the computer most of the time.

 

[Guest]

Saving files on floppy disks is asking for trouble. They are
notoriously unreliable. Much, much better to save them on
the hard disk and have a backup copy on a flash disk
that is kept well away from the computer most of the time.


I agree to that. However, he (hubby) swears by those floppies. ME? I prefer the CD. They hold so much more data and are so much easier to store.

Thanks for all your help everyone.
Truly appreciate it all...
Apeke

 

[Gordon]

Show this to your hubbie. Office applications, particularly Word, open a
temporary file in the same folder as the original document. If that document
is on a floppy (who REALLY uses floppies these days with flash drives so
cheap?) and the combined size of the temp file and the original grow to more
than the floppy capacity, (and that is VERY easy with a Word document -
floppies are only 1.44 MB...) then Pow! the document will be corrupted and
unusable. Copy files to the HDD, edit them there and THEN copy onto a
floppy.

PS - buy him a 1GB flash drive for his birthday.....

 

[Andrew Murray]

Let's do something very simple. Is there a floppy disk drive? Is
a floppy diskette in the drive when the computer starts? If yes,
then remove the floppy diskette and re-boot.

Additionally; is there a CD in the cd drive, and is your BIOS set with the
CD ROM as the '1st boot' device? (you can set a number of devices like CD
drives, Floppy drive, hard drive).

That error is saying that there's no operating system/boot sector on the
disk it is trying to boot from - if from A: (floppy) or your CD drive then
remove the disk(s) but if it's trying to boot from C: (hard drive) then you
need to reinstall the O/S. That doesn't explain how/why a disk clean
up/defrag would cause such a problem as wiping your entire hard drive.
Also, just doing Disk Clean up/Defrag will not remove viruses, spyware or
any malicous files of any sort - so if those were present, it could explain
the problem if your PC contracted a particular nasty virus/trojan.