Windows XP Boot Disk Error/Failure

I'm using a HP Pavilion that's about 10 years old. Everything is still pretty much stock, however, I did add a couple external harddrives. In the last couple of days I received the error "boot error, pretty ctrl alt del to restart".. the first time i did it, i restarted the computer and it worked fine. this morning i got that same message and tried to restart only to come back to the boot disk error info. i tried to restart once more and got "DISK BOOT FAILURE INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER."

seeing as i don't have the System Disk anymore, I just shut off the power switch and waited about 10 minutes. turned it back on and everything started fine and here i am writing in this forum.

i've read some of the threads and am told to press DEL when the black screen appears so I can check my harddrive on my BIOS settings... but before i do that, should i start backing things up on one of my external harddrives in case it never gets another chance to get back on?

also what are my options if im without the system disk?

i also read somewhere about taking out the old harddrive and put in a newer one..

 

Welcome to the forum Backups are always important and I'd recommend you backup your information ASAP if its important to you,saying that what I'm about to instruct you to do will not damage or alter the contents of the hard drive so it will be recoverable but the decision is yours,if the hard drive does die now it won't be because of this.

You need to hit del as the computer is booting,go into 'bios features' and set your hard drive as the 'first boot device',next look for setting called 'hard drive boot priority' and choose your hard drive if you have multiple drives,if your struggling to identify your hard drive either disconnect all other drives but your OS drive or hit the start tab,right click it in 'my computer',properties,hardware and make note of its name.

Next find and option called 'boot other device' and disable it,this should stop your computer trying to boot from your usb drives.

Your computer should boot fine now

 

thanks rikky for the very quick reply. i am set to do this as my next step, however, i do have another important question now that you have given me some instructions..

you said to disable "boot other device"... are you saying that my issue isn't with the harddrive that is already installed, rather it is an issue with my external harddrive that is infact connected to a usb port?

this might even be a bigger issue then i thought if that is the case, as the external harddrive carrys around 500 GB of music... yikes..

 

It could be either external,internal or even cdrom so make sure you have no floppy disks inserted or cdroms as they can cause this error also,if your boot order and options aren't setup right the computer will scan all available drives and may choose the wrong one every so often,you can even try removing all other drives apart from your windows drive and see if it boots every time,this would prove the problem lies with the boot order and not the drive.

The size of the drive or what's on it is irrellevant really and I would class this as a very simple problem so far so no need to worry

EDIT

Your primary drive may be at the end of its life though if its 10 years old so a backup of your C: drive may be prudent if you have lots of important information on it,if your external music disk was dying it wouldn't produce this error you just wouldn't be able to access your music or it wouldn't show up in my computer.

 

Help have a Compaq Presario sr5120an doing the same thing
I have tried to load XP sp2 on but will not allow I get a blue screen telling me to stop

OM I have lost it the PC is a Compaq Presario not a pavillion lol
Spent 2 days getting no where so far