Error loading operating system...please help!

[Talynn]

I let my friend borrow my computer for a few months. Bad freaking idea, dont do it. Well when i got it back from my vacation and tried to boot it up it goes pass the dell logo screen and then right after that it says error loading operating system.

Ive looked at many threads about this problem but nothing seems to fix it. I have a Dell dimension 8250 512 mb ram. 60 gig storage 2.5g processor. This is the first time this has ever happened to me. My friend said that it was working fine when he brought it back to me. Ive gone into the bios and under the harddrive i can only change it to off or auto so i cant put it to large or lma or whatever other ppl could change theirs to that fixes it. the boot sequence shows the IDE cd rom first and the HD second so that is fine but when i try and put in my cd recovery disc or a windows xp disc it wont work. So i dont know what is wrong with that either.

So i cant put in a cd and the bios seems to be working fine. Can anyone else tell me what might be wrong? thanks in advance

[kccomputerdr]

if your cd is an oem version it should be able to read it at bootup, unless your cd rom drive is bad. if it is Windows xp it may say press Enter or any key to boot from cd, do that. if that doesn't work, check that the ide cable is plugged into your cd drive & motherboard.... your friend may have possibly opened it up trying to figure it out, only to mess it up. Also check that they didn't disable the auto detect of certain master's & slaves in the bios. The more you think about it, it may be pointing towards a bad cdrom drive.

If your xp or whatever is an upgrade, (probably unlikely with a newer pc) then try booting off a win 98 cd or something. or if all else fails, try booting a Linux mandriva cd to test the cdrom.

[Talynn]

Yea it doesnt say anything about Entering a key to boot from cd. If I put in a CD like the windows xp reinstall disc or something it will just do the exact same thing as if there was no cd in there at all. The green light comes on though. The cable seems to be plugged in fine to my cd rom and dvd rom drive and to the motherboard.

How do i check in the bios about auto detect of master HD and slave HDs? I have been in the bios a bunch recently and havent seen anything about an autodetect i dont think. What is it under?

I dont have a win 98 or a linux cd to test. But all i would think is that if i put in one of those cds it would do the same thing it has been doing so far. is there anything that i can do to check if my cd rom is bad? without having to buy anything or go into detailed tech stuff?

But even if my cd rom is bad thats not the reason why it is saying "error loading operating system" right?

So I have one main problem: the error loading operating system thing, and another problem - my cd rom wont let me boot from it or whatever.

Any ideas?

[kccomputerdr]

Yea it doesnt say anything about Entering a key to boot from cd. If I put in a CD like the windows xp reinstall disc or something it will just do the exact same thing as if there was no cd in there at all. The green light comes on though. The cable seems to be plugged in fine to my cd rom and dvd rom drive and to the motherboard.

How do i check in the bios about auto detect of master HD and slave HDs? I have been in the bios a bunch recently and havent seen anything about an autodetect i dont think. What is it under?

I dont have a win 98 or a linux cd to test. But all i would think is that if i put in one of those cds it would do the same thing it has been doing so far. is there anything that i can do to check if my cd rom is bad? without having to buy anything or go into detailed tech stuff?

But even if my cd rom is bad thats not the reason why it is saying "error loading operating system" right?

So I have one main problem: the error loading operating system thing, and another problem - my cd rom wont let me boot from it or whatever.

Any ideas?

could be that any device also connected to that ide cable is bad & causing problems, or sometimes a motherboard can decide that one ide hookup can no longer work. it happens unfortunately. cables go bad too, especially if friends get inside yanking them.

look in bios for area that shows four different listings. you have 4 ide devices. it is in there somewhere for sure. I cannot say much cause all bios's vary in details, but it is there somewhere & it should be able to be changed to auto. you could also reset bios settings to default. that would probably work as well

[Talynn]

well i earlier i thought it was my HD so i went out and bought another one and since i cant run the CD to get my new HD working i ended up taking the new IDE cable that came with it and used it to plug into my old HD with no luck so i dont think the cable is the problem. atleats for the error loading op sys thing. maybe for my cd rom im not sure.

When i go into the bios and go into the harddrive option where i can turn it off or auto It shows the size of the HD which is 60 gigs so since it shows that im guessing that the HD is fine because it is recognizing that its a 60 gig HD. not for sure though.

[kccomputerdr]

well i earlier i thought it was my HD so i went out and bought another one and since i cant run the CD to get my new HD working i ended up taking the new IDE cable that came with it and used it to plug into my old HD with no luck so i dont think the cable is the problem. atleats for the error loading op sys thing. maybe for my cd rom im not sure.

When i go into the bios and go into the harddrive option where i can turn it off or auto It shows the size of the HD which is 60 gigs so since it shows that im guessing that the HD is fine because it is recognizing that its a 60 gig HD. not for sure though.

the same area that shows your hard drive should also show your cdrom drive. If it does not then it is not detecting it either because it's bad or the settings are wrong or something.