compaq presario boot up issue

Have a Compaq Presario that when it boots goes to "disk boot failure insert system disk and press enter". Just before this the Compaq logo flashes briefly. I have tried accessing the bios to make sure the harddrive is on the right boot. I have tried del, F1, F2, F10, F11, and F12 to no avail.

I don't have the xp disc that came for this machine (actually belongs to a friend and she lost it) so I downloaded Boot CD – Windows XP Emergency Boot CD (XP SP2 Pro & XP SP2 Home). When I inserted the disk and started the computer it said something about changing the boot preference. Tried getting into bios again, no go, then inserted disc again and all i am getting is the black screen/white cursor.

How can I get into bios or get a boot up disc to work?

thanks
smile
whril

 

Keys to get into the BIOS that you have not tried:
F3
esc
ctrl+alt+esc
ctrl+alt+ins
ctrl+alt+enter
ctrl+alt+del
ctrl+alt+s
page up key
page down key
esc+F1

 

no go, none of those worked either. any other suggestions?

thanks
smile
whril

 

Change keyboards on the off chance it is not recognizing the keyboard you are using.

 

duh....... the keyboard was the problem. sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. thank you so very much.

smile

 

Hey, at least you solved it!