fatal disk error or non system disk

when starting up a friend system we get non system disk or fatal disk failure on the same line. The day before this started we had blue boxs across the screen with numbers in them. any ideas?
steve

 

Hi grandpa stev

non system disk often means a floppy has bean left in the floppy drive - We really need to know the full and exact error message to know where to start

Does the system boot ?

steam

 

there is no disk or even a cd in the computer. Its and old compac system that is running win 98. It was running great till 3 days ago. It started booting slow, then we got those blue boxs with numbers in them. now we hear the hard drive trying to work and get this and this is the whole message. (nonsytem disk o rdisk failure) it says nothing else

 

Probably not going to be a good outcome....does the hard drive sound like it always did.....or is it making different sounds?

Can you access the bios setup by hitting the F 10 key......does the hard drive appear there?

 

i tried putting a boot disk in the A drive and nothing

 

You'd need to change the bios to boot from the floppy first.......BUT, if the hard drive isn't appearing in the bios setup, it's not going to matter anyway.....so check that first......

 

I'll try hitting F10 when go over later. I forgot und the error it said.hit any key to restart. so I don't think F10 is going to help.

 

You'll hit the F 10 key before it gets that far.........soon as you see the little line in the upper right hand corner, prior to the Compaq logo.........keep tapping it.........

 

as soon as we turn the monitor on there is a compac screen with an hour glass in the lower left corner we never see any blank screens

 

The monitor should be on BEFORE the computer is turned on.........

 

we turn on the monitor first but even with the pc off we get a white screen with compac acroos the center.

 

Ok....let's do this......turn everything off...........turn monitor on........should be blank, if not, don't worry........turn PC on.......stuff should start showing up on monitor.......keep tapping the F 10 key until the keyboard gives an error message or until you are able to access the bios setup......it should come prior to the nonsystem disk error message........

 

I'll try it . be back around 2:30 east time