Hi, im new to forums but ill try my best...

here goes..

the last few days my Pc has been playing up.
when i boot it it displays the motherboard logo, then tries to search for a boot record which it has not done (to my knowledge) before.
i get these messaes as follows:
"Searching for Boot Record from CDROM..Not Found
Searching for Boot Record from IDE-0..Not Found
Searching for Boot Record from IDE-1..Not Found

Boot Failure
Reboot and select proper Boot Device
or insert boot media in selected boot device"

not too sure what has happened here but ive tried everything i know how to do, checked leads, switched HDDs, checked moterboard, changed boot prioritory, reinstalled windows xp, formatted disks, used recovery console on XP disk, checked power supply, etc...

also i can get as far as putting installation files onto hard drive when reinstalling XP and when it goes to restart to install XP it comes up with the message stated above, or restarts the installation process..

my PC isnt super new but this hasnt happened before.

any help will be much apreciated,

Thanks.

Hey Gizza, welcome to PCHF.

Depending on what caused this problem, is the boot record is the only problem, then here is what you need to do (you'll need a floppy drive and 2 blank floppy disk):

- Go here and download and install the Windows 98 Custom version listed there: Bootdisk.Com - Free Windows Bootdisks, Free DOS boot disk
- Download http://www.ranish.com/part/part240.zip
- Extract the files onto a new floppy disk.

- Reboot your PC with the Windows 98 floppy disk in the drive (you may need to enter BIOS to change the boot order of your drives - 1st floppy).
- At the command prompt, swap floppy disks, and the type in part
- From the partition editor, scroll down to your Windows partition, should be around the third entry, and press "b" on your keyboard, and you will see the ">" character appear to the left. This will flag the disk to boot to that partition.
- If it's the problem I think you having, you should also see "Unknown IPL" appear below. Scroll down to MBR and press [ENTER]. Select "Standard IPL".
- Remove the floppy disk and reboot.

Thanks madmonkey!
One problem, i dont have a floppy drive.. :/ any other way to do this? maybe an ISO disk?

Thank you very much for your help.

Gizza

It turned out to be my hard drive, i was so sure it wasnt my hard drive but i have got as far as installing windows to a new hard drive now so i hope that works out...

Thank you very much for your help and time
i will update the result when it is done

Thanks again
Gizza

No problems Giz. Will mark this thread as Resolved.