what does error loading os mean??

Question

When i go to power up my laptop it just started saying this. does this mean my system has crashed

Answer 1

Yes, you might have to do the following to get your system to load the OS.
During the first part of the winxp install, when it gets to the part where it's asing you what partition you want to install to, have you deleted all the partions on the drive, so it's just showing unpartitioned space for the whole drive? If not, you need to do this.

Then create a partion, format it to ntfs (quick format if you dont have the time to wait) and select this to install winxp to. if that fails, try a different, known good, copy of winxp.

After that.... remove all cards apart from graphics card is worth a shot. Reseat the cards carefully!

is 'error loading os' the exact and whole error message? i suspect there may be more to the message than that, might be useful to have that if none of the above works.

Read about the error here for more assistance:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic21558.html
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm#How

Answer 2

Sure does, your operating system startup files are most likely corrupt or you have a virus. You should use the crash disks that came with your computer or do a total reformat and reload Windows (or whatever OS you are using).

Answer 3

Hopefully not. Run computer in safe mode, if possible. If not, just reload the operating sytem from your computer's back up disks (not total reformat). You can do a partial install from the backup disks w/o destroying all your document and program files.

Answer 4

not necessarily. perhaps your computer is searching for an os boot disk in its cd drive, or you've got a boot disk in your cd drive when it's not supposed to be in there...

Answer 5

Check to see if theres a floppy disk in its floppy drive, or a bootable CD in the CD-ROM drive.