"Cannot start DOS"

[Guest]

I just received the following message when cold-booting my computer this
morning: "Cannot start DOS any key to retry".

I have WinXP Professional w/SP2, I can get to the CMOS/BIOS screens by
hitting the "delete" button when prompted. Whenever I hit the infamous "any
key", it just keeps rebooting to the same error message. I have tried
inserting the WinXP setup disk in the drive, then cold-booting--keep getting
the same message.

What happened? How can I fix this? (I thought DOS had gone bye-bye!)

THanks for any and all help in resolving this!!! NO answers yet found in
the Microsoft support pages nor any other "techie" site I have found while
Googling.

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Make sure that your hard drive is set to be the first boot device in the
BIOS and that there is no disk in the floppy drive.

[[Non-System disk or disk error

Replace and press any key when ready ]]
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[[Q. What causes a non-system disk error?

A. Non-System Disk or Disk Error results when the Basic Input/Output System
(BIOS) cannot find the boot sector or the master boot record is missing or
damaged; i.e. the device does not have bootable media. The BIOS searches
drives in the order usually specified in the CMOS Setup. This order is
often, but not always, A: (floppy drive), C: (first partition on the hard
disk)… The error will occur during startup if the CMOS is set so the BIOS
seeks the floppy drive first and a non-bootable (or blank) floppy is in (was
left in) the floppy drive. Other causes include:

• No bootable partition on a hard disk drive
• A defective hard disk drive
• The CMOS drive settings (parameters) are not correct for the boot device
• Defective floppy
• Defective floppy drive
• A virus ]]
http://www.duxcw.com/faq/win/nosys.htm

Error message when you start your computer with a non-system disk
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812492

Invalid / Non System Disk error
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000229.htm

Creating a boot disk for an NTFS or FAT partition
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311073

How to use System files to create a boot disk to guard against being unable
to start Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314079

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Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In