Help! My computer won't run windows.?

Question

My ex said he pulled out the extra drive, but left everything else alone (yeah right). I'm afraid he killed my computer. Please Help!! It will turn on, start the BIOS (?) then says "boot from disk" did he wipe everything?

Answer 1

Hi,
If it is saying, “boot from disk”, then u have to check for many factors.
Check the following,
1.Check that u r hard drive is properly connected to the motherboard.
If it is connected properly and still problem remains then,
2.Go to the setup (bios) at the booting by pressing ‘del’ and check for boot sequence,
is it in the proper way as has to be or any change is there.
The sequence can be
First – CD drive
Second- your hard drive
If it is not in this order then set them as above and reboot ur system with no CD’s in the CD drive
If the problem still remains then,
3.Take your hard drive to another system and there check for windows in ur hard drive
by placing ur hard disk in the secondary position by changing the pin on ur hard disk.
If u do not do so then the same problem can be arise there.
4.If windows remain in ur hard drive and system not working then the cable may be the
cause of problem, change the cable and start the system.
5.If u found that there is no windows on ur hard drive then definitely ur primary drive is wiped out.

So check for the above probabilities, it’s going to be worked.

If problem still remains then a physical check by a hardware professional should done.

All the best.

Answer 2

Well, if your computer wants to boot from disk, then that means you certainly don't have an operating system. If by extra drive, you mean a hard drive, then chances are, you might be in trouble, especially if you were using RAID 0 for the two drives. If it was a RAID 0, you need the other drive back in order for your computer to properly function without wiping everything.

Answer 3

make sure there are no cds or floppies in the drives and restart the system, if he took out the drive with the operating system on it then the computer will have nowhere to go after it starts up and may ask for a boot disk...

the files on the drive still in the system will still be there at this point, but you need to grab another hard drive and shove it in where he took the last one out, then format that new hard drive (can tell by the size of the drive which one it will be) with windows and you will again be able to access the drive he left.

Answer 4

You most likely have a disconnected hard drive, just plug the wires back in, there should only be two wires to connect to your hard drive, one should be coming from your power supply, and the other coming from your motherboard. Just connect the two and it should solve the problem, if not, then that means that your operating system is not there, and in this case, the "boot from disk" message is telling you to install Windows, or whatever operating system you use.

Since you said your ex pulled out the extra drive, I'm assuming that you have two hard drives, and sometimes I have this problem when I augment my computer, try putting back in your "extra" drive and disconnect the existing drive in your computer and start the computer. If everything works, restart and connect the other hard drive back, and start the computer. That usually works for me.

Answer 5

Could be several things.

1: He could have taken the C: drive and left the "extra drive". Your C: drive has the Windows operating system on it. Or he could have taken both...

2:He could have deleted or formated your C: drive which would remove Windows from the drive and all other files as well.


When you start up your computer go into BIOS and look for the section on hard rrives and look to see if it shows ANY hard drives at all. *IF* not, then if the option is available, do an AUTO DETECT to see if BIOS finds any drives.

Once you've done the above you can either write back here or either Emai or IM me.

Answer 6

It sounds like the hard drive has been compromised and your operating system uninstalled. Your computer is asking if you want to start Windows from a disk. Or, it may be in Safe Mode. Hard to say without looking at it.

Answer 7

Killing a computer isn't difficult to do but in your case it could be one of a few things:
1) Bad Hard Drive controler
2) Loose IDE/SATA cable
3) No Physical OS on your Drive
4) The Primary Drive was removed
5) Loose power cable
6) Drive could be improperly formated (No NTFS/FAT/FAT32)

So now that i've stated 6 "Possable" problems a few things you'll need to check all these things:
1) Bootable OS (IE Slax/SuSE Live/Knoppix)
2) HDD encloser IDE or SATA
3) Seagate's Hard drive tester
4) USB Hard Drive/Thumb Drive

Ok the first thing that i would do is get Seagate's Hard Drive tester which you can get at: http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/seatoold_reg.html

NOTE: You will eather need to put the program on a Floppy disk or burn the downloadable ISO image to a CD

Once you get this tool on a Floppy or a CD restart your computer and boot to the appropreate drive that has the Hard Drive Tester in it. This will allow the computer to boot the tester. (You will follow a similar process for a bootable os)

NOTE: If your BIOS isn't set up to boot to the CD drive or the Floppy Drive first (Which most are) you will have to change your boot loader

Now one of 2 things will happen eather
A) Seatool's will find your Hard Drive
or
B) It won't
I will go over both cases

Case A:
Now that your hard drive has been reconized check off your hard drive and your motherboard then click next. On this next screen uncheck the quick scan and check the following:
Full scan
Controler Test
Filesystem Test

NOTE: Running these test will take awhile so don't get to antsy

Once the tests are complete if anything is highlighted with a red dot that is your problem but if everything is green. In this case we would next move to the bootabe os which i will cover in alittle while.

Case B:
If SeaTool's doesn't pick up your Hard drive run the controler test to see if that is bad. If the controler comes up bad you will have to replace the motherboard. If it doesn't come up bad check the connections inside for power and connection to the board then restart and run Seatool's again.

If you don't find any problems the next test we will run is running a bootable OS to see if there is any Physical data on the drive.

NOTE: If you have any important data on hard drive (IE Photos/Word Docs/etc) you will be able to pull them off with the Bootable OS as long as the Hard drive is working properly.

First here are some bootable OS's that i recomend they are all linux based:
Slax: http://www.slax.org/download.php
Knoppix: http://www.knoppix.org/

NOTE: You have to burn ISO images to disks

Eather on you choose you will do like you did for the SeaTool's and boot to the CD-ROM drive I will go over how to do most of this with Slax but Knoppix is somewhat similar.
I'll add on instructions for Knoppix aswell when i get the ISO file burned to a disk for myself.

NOTE: I do recomend Using SLAX Server

Once your booted you'll have a text prompt type the following:
Login: root
password: toor
root@slax: startx

Once you do that on any Slax version the GUI version of the Linux operating system will start up.

NOTE: Don't worry you haven't actually installed anything on your hard drive this Operating system is run completely off the disk.

Once the GUI has booted up Click on the System Icon then click storage meda then Hard Disk (if its there).

Once your in the hard drive if there is anything on the hard drive then you can pull it off it with a USB Drive or a Thumb drive that is native (useable) in Linux which alot are now.

If there is nothing on your drive then of coarse you have no OS and you would have to install Window's on that drive, but if there are OS files on there you will probally have to wipe the Hard drive and reinstall Windows again.

NOTE: Be sure eather way if there is data on the drive move it off now to a USB drive cause it will be gone after a reformat.

If none of this solves your problem i would sugest actually bring it into a certified tech. Personally i wouldn't even bother with Windows after this i would move over to Linux but if you have any other questions about how to use any of the tools i told you about more indepthly email me or message me on messenger.

Answer 8

maybe the one he took is the hard disk that holds the windows system not the extra drive or maybe he forgot to connect the cables for hard disk. just check the cables inside that connect the hard disk

Answer 9

Hi,
Try to open CPU and see if the Harddisk Drive is connected properly ,it seems that your Hard Disk is not connected.connect them you will not get this msg.

Best of Luck.

Answer 10

He pulled the wrong drive out! The drive he pulled out contained the boot.ini file! Tell him to put it back and stick to fixing sandwiches!