Blank screen, is fixing possible?

Changed the dvd drive and still a boot failure, There is a hard drive in the donor machine so I am going to replace that. Not too sure whats on it but from distant memory it was a working copy of xp. Will report back.

If the donor system is XP it may not boot if the problem system is Vista or Win 7 since the drivers will be different.

I am having trouble booting, double checking the jumper settings as the donor had 2 hard drives in it. The donor was xp the sick one xp maybe pro. definitely not vista or 7. When I boot i get a white line with black bar runs across the bottom of the screen.

Since it was put in a different system did you change the jumper to a single drive?

The hard drive is a Western digital WD400 and according to their website it should have no jumpers to be used as a single drive which is what I have done.

OK if you don't connect a hard drive at all does the system post then?

if you don't connect a hard drive at all does the system post then?

Sorry, terminology, dont understand.

In other words don't connect the ribbon or the power to the hard drive. You should get post screen that will say no boot device found.

It is set for First boot device HDD-1 I get… Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM: Failure Disc boot failure, insert system disc and press enter.

Yep so with the hard drive connected you get nothing at all correct? No post screens?

With the drive connected it boots to the `start windows normally` does a 28 second countdown, sticks at zero (seconds) and there is a white/black band across the bottom of the screen which turns to all white, a bit like the bar when downloading from the internet but stretches horizontally across the width of the screen.

It never goes into windows then?

It doesnt go into windows. I tried the other hard drive and get … NTLDR is missing Only one of the hard drives has win xp on ot the other was a back up but not sure which is which.

OK so what does the original hard drive have on it XP, Vista or Win7? We can try a Repair Installation but you need the installation disk to do it.

The original hard drive had xp pro (95% sure, possible xp home, but def xp) He is unlikely to find his original disc as he is wheelchair bound and never remembers where anything is. I have a vague recollection of him getting a PC shop to sort a problem a couple of years back and they may have reinstalled xp. I have 2 discs here from years back, I wouldnt think they link to the original. one looks like a copy and one has original with bar code label and product key (both xp pro)