Laptop won't boot.

[brain29]

Yeah, so my friends laptop wont boot up. It gives the "non-system disk error, replace and press any key message", however there is no floppy disk in the drive. I have tried changing the boot order to start with the HDD or even the cd drive using Knoppix, but it still gives the error message. Is this a bad floppy and/or hard drive? How can I know without having spare notebook parts?

 

[LiLithTecH]

Depending the age of the laptop, it may not support booting
off the CD Rom even though you can set it as the first device.

What OS?

What brand\model laptop?

 

[brain29]

It's running WinXP and all I know it's a compaq. Im assuming its fairly old, at least 2 years.

 

[LiLithTecH]

Its highly likely that the drive is dead.

Knoppix will not boot because it writes several files to HD when booting.
If the drive is not functioning, it will not boot.

Did you try booting with the WinXP disk or run the Compaq diagnostics?

Note: 2 years old is not an old laptop. I was referring to 8yrs+.