PC promts for F1 or F2 before windows xp starts

[yldrice]

My PC, a Dell 3000, one day decided to be difficult. Before XP would boot, the black screen appeared and said, "Hard drive not found, press F1 to continue or F2 for setup" Now, by pressing F1 the PC booted up Windows XP and I went on my marry way. I did get tired of doing that and, btw, pressing F2 to try and fix boot did nothing to fix the problem, so, I contacted Microsoft with my dilema and they said to run a disc scan to clear the problem. I did just that and now, the PC will not boot at all. Microsoft, after hearing that my PC now won't boot, called Dell and together, we had a nice chat only to find from them, that my hard drive was now corupt. GREAT NEWS....and of course, I didn't have the damn thing backed up properly and that was that. Nice, huh? You didn't think that they would shoulder any the blame? So, I have a new hard drive but loading the thing is so long and so maddening. My real question is, why did the hard drive ask what it asked and why did it suddenly corrupt itself? There was no indication that the drive was going bad or that any of the PC functions were at threat. I kept the old hard drive because I believe that it isn't corupt but just stuck somehow on something other than primary drive...

 

[wahnula]

why did the hard drive ask what it asked and why did it suddenly corrupt itself?

Tough questions, especially from afar. Any guess would be just that. Once you get your new HDD up & running, connect the old HDD (as slave if IDE) and see if you can view the files.

If you're feeling adventurous, connect it alone, boot to the Recovery Console and run chkdsk C:/r

You should have come here before you listened to phone support, their mission is to get you off the line as quickly as possible. Declaring a drive "corrupt" is an easy way to close a case.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[acewarlock]

I have found that a dead CMOS battery causes that F1/F2 prompt.




This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[yldrice]

Thanksforyour reply and you are soooo right about the online support gig. I guess that is the big reason that I am at this web address... I will try your suggestions but not real certain how I would connect old drive without perhaps screwing up the new one? And trying to boot to recovery consuel was a no go...
Again thanks...
Bonb