I was holding onto a small glimmer of hope that the HD somehow had gotten disabled.
Since you don't get an error message I'm not sure if we would be able to do anything in Hirem's as we don't know what we are looking for. Though this looks similar to the problems you experienced in the previous thread, there at least you had an error message to go by. I suppose you could try following the instructions given to you by CatByte last time to ensure the boot.ini file hasn't become corrupted again. I will keep looking.
Shall I assume that you are going to close this, and I need to take the old PC into Microcenter? I did try to run the instructions that CatByte gave me last February, installing the standard MBR code - but nothing happened. It prompted - are you sure - I said Y - and then it took me back to the options screen. It did not seem to do anything.
I thought I was waiting for more from you, but maybe you were waiting for me - Sounds like there are no suggestions from your side.
and then it took me back to the options screen. It did not seem to do anything.
Same message as before when you tried to boot? OS or hard drive not found?
I've been looking but everything I've come across points to being able to access the HD. I was hoping to be able to do a Repair Install of Windows but if the hard drive isn't being seen then that's out.
We could try the Tech side of the forum. I'll give you a link if you want to go that route before taking it to a shop.
When I boot the PC it gives me a blank screen. No error message at all.
I guess a tech link would be fine. For some odd reason, I think it's fine. I just need to find a way to get to the hard drive.
I'm not sure if it's a hard drive issue or not. For some reason windows can't seem to find the HD or the OS when using thw Windows disk yet other tools can.
We can try this if you want. It's done from a floppy disk and will bypass the mbr.
You will need a few things including the boot.ini file from your computer. Since you can't use your computer to copy the files you need you will need to get 2 files from a computer that has the same operating system as yours.
Format a floppy disk with Windows XP format tool.
To do this, open My Computer, right click Floppy drive icon and click on format
Open windows explorer (right click the Start button and click Explore)
At the top of windows explorer, click tools, folder options, click the view tab
check Display the contents of system folders
check Show hidden files and folders
uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types" box
uncheck "Hide protecting operating system files" box
Click apply, click ok
Navigate to the C:\ drive and locate these 2 files ntldr
ntdetect.com
copy them to the floppy.
Now comes the hard part. You will need to manually make a copy of the boot.ini file. Access your compter again with Hiren's so you can open the boot.ini file. On the working computer open a new notepad, make sure wordwrap is off. Type the exact text as your boot.ini Save it to the floppy as boot.ini
Be very careful when you save it. Make sure you are saving it to the floppy. If you save it to the computer you may accidently overwrite the existing one on that computer.
Once all 3 file have been copied to the floppy, place it in your computer and reboot the computer to the floppy.
You may want to post the boot.ini here so we can have a look at it.
I'm just about out of ideas. The Windows forum can be found here. We can keep plugging away at this if you want.
