I have just been talking to a friend of mine who is having problems with her computer. We're both a bit thick when it comes to technology so if I don't understand any advice I'm given, you'll know why!

My friend can't get her computer to boot up. She says that it displays a message saying "locating boot disk" for about an hour then goes off which is odd. She thinks she may have got a computer virus that has messed things up but since she has no internet and doesnt pass around floppies I dont think this could be it.

She asked me if she could borrow my Restore disks (as she hasn't got any for some strange reason) but I don't know whether this would work as her computer is Windows 98 and mine's ME.

Short of calling in a repair guy, what can she do?

sounds like she needs to reformat her hard drive with the win boot disc which she aint got and HAS she got the windows 98 master cd disc with the win 98 operating system on it ,also has she got a cd rom drive you never said ?.if she calls a repair guy and hes STRAIGHT and she aint got the win 98 disc with the licence HE wont touch it, some do some dont just depends on the guy,but a shop nope.

I have sought advice, the verdict is ... the hard drive is either dead, or not available. The latter could just be a loose connection. The former would mean a new hard drive, but without a copy of the relevant Windows, not an option.

The battery to the BIOS that stores the hard disk information may also have gone.

Oh this is all so confusing! I'll print it out and give it to her for when she phone's the repair guy.

Thankyou everyone!

Originally posted by caprice
Oh this is all so confusing! I'll print it out and give it to her for when she phone's the repair guy.

Thankyou everyone!

Caprice I'm glad that there is somebody else with the same level of computer knowledge as myself ;)