How do I manually configure/service my PC tower powered by Windows Xp Pro to work right so I can use it again?

Question

Hi- I am aware of the fact that Xp Pro is a now obsolete operating system. I have an IBM Thinkcentre tower that is powered by it and I need it to work again so I can connect to the again and perform other tasks on it. I need to connect to the Internet, do work processing and scan images into it and archive them and I have a bunch of saved info saved in the system that I need to retrieve from it. When I turn my tower on I get the following screens and messages:

1st screen: System is starting--- To interrupt normal startup, press Enter

2nd screen: Press Cntl-S to enter Configuration Menu

3rd screen: IBM ThinkCenter logo screen

4th screen: Error 8603: Pointing Desire Error
(F1) to Setup (F2) to Resume
Error Boot Sequence will be taken if no selection is made

5th Screen: Client Mac Address: 00 1125 f8 94 f9 Guid: A9b94550abf534af8861EA42410164C3
DHCP.../ (the "/" rotates)
PXE-E53: NO BOOT FILENAME FOUND
PXE-MOF: EXITING BROADCOM
1962: NO OPERATION SYSTEM FOUND
PRESS F1 TO REPEAT BOOT SEQUENCE.

The 5th screen is the last screen that pops up and it keeps repeating after this and the system keeps rebooting itself.

Verizon is my Internet carrier- I called their tech support dept. to have a rep walk me through getting my PC tower fixed so I can connect to the Internet again. The person at Verizon I spoke to told me that if I am getting a message that reads, "no operating system found", that my hard drive is bad and I can't configure my pc tower unless the hard drive is fixed. How can I manually service my hard drive and configure my tower to work again so I can connect to the internet and perform other functions on my PC? Please help. I hope I provided enough information regarding this problem. Thank you.

Answer 1

Just use the Windows Xp PRo repair disk or recovery disk if you have them.



http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/ss/instxprepair1.htm

Answer 2

I use Win XP on two computers and its fine.

It does seem that the boot sector or another part of windows has been damaged. The simplest thing to do would be to take it to a repair shop. Every electronic or office supply store has one.

It may be as simple as fixing the boot sector or it may be as bad as a truely dead hard drive.

If you want to do it yourself, and you have all your data backed up, get out the Win XP disks and reinstall Windows on the drive.

If you don't have your data backed up, I suggest to buy another hard drive (really big ones are very inexpensive these days) and set up the new drive with your Win XP disks. Then use the bad drive as a second drive. Change the jumper for that drive to be a slave then connect it to the hard drive cable. You might be able to see your data files in there and move them to the good drive. Then reinstall all your programs.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

If you are willing to listen and learn from someone that has 36 years of computer experience in building, repairing and installing multiple types of computer operating systems, then you will get done what you need to get done. and have that old Xp system running faster than it has ever done.



I will start with this, I have a 13yr old Dell Laptop with 512Mb of ram that used to run Vista, It can't run windows 7 because of the memory limitation. Today it has no hard drive in it. yet it still run the latest September 2013 operating system, I boot it up from cd/dvd, usb jump/flash drives, and SD cards, to demonstrate what can be done with other more advance and superior free operating systems.



Now do this, go to this website download their Free operating system it's up to date september 2013, make a systems boot up disk with the downloaded file, boot up your old Xp system with the disk Have a usb jump/flash dive handy so you can copy your data files from the hard drive to the jump drive. Log on to the hard drive and copy the files to the jump drive, bingo files saved,



here is their web site check it out for yourself, do the tour of the operating system then you will understand what it's all about,

http://zorin-os.com



This is just one of many free operating system that is available to you. You will find the lastest October 2013 release here

http://distrowatch.com



Now you know that windows and mac are NOT the only computer operating system in the world.

Answer 4

it could just mean you have lost one file in the root of drive C: loss of NTdetect or NTLdr usually gives you that message