Can't get my home PC to turn on, all i get is the follwoing message:

Disk Boot Error, insert system disk and press enter.

The guy who built my pc 3 years ago, has siad he might be able to save it, but wants £60.

Now i'm not bothered about losing the pc, as it's so old. What I am bothered about is the fact that I haven't backed anyhting up for about 18months so i'm gonna lose 18months worth of films, music, porn, household bills stuff, everything?!?!?!?

Can anyone help, or know how I can at the very least get it too turn on one more time so I can move files over to my external hard drive?

PLeeeeeeeeease someone help???????  

Which windows version are you using? And is so old it's got a floppy disk drive?

You won't have lost all the data regardless.

Have you tried switching it all off, waiting 10 seconds and restarting! This is the advise I always get told when I speak to IT helpdesk

when it loads,
press either f10 or f11 whichever brings up the system diagnostics.

You can opt to do a full system re-install, this will also give you the option to save everything on an external hard drive.

i had this problem a few weeks back,

then when my computer eventually re-set its self i just reloaded everything from the external hard drive

Do not make any remarks that could in the slightest be construed as racist, sexist, homophobic, slightly to the right of center, or anything that may easily be twisted to look as such, no matter how innocent the original remark is.  

I think thats pretty PC nowadays.  ;)

Mind how yo go now  :)

As for computers mind, I know sodomist all I'm afraid  :-/

Sounds like a boot sector has gone boobs up. Plenty of other things could have happened though. I'd recommend a complete re-install if you can do with losing everything. As has been said above, go to the BIOS and see if the disk is still visible. If it isn't, a sector "flag" could have been corrupted and you'll lose everything anyway. Or you could "accidentally" spill coke down it and get a new one on your house insurance, although this is fraud and I don't condone it.  (It takes loads of coke to kill a laptop though, so a washing up bowl full of it would PROBABLY work....)

Put the drive in another PC (of a friend or something). You should then be able to grab some if not all of your data from the drive (burn it to DVD or save it on your friend's machine for now). Then either reformat the drive if it's recoverable and reinstall your software, or buy a new hard disk (fairly cheap from ebuyer) and re-install from there.

The re-installing from BIOS thing will only work if your machine has been set up with a re-install partition on the hard drive - this is done by some vendors, but not all. And if your disk is knacked then it probably won't work anyway. Also, there's no guarantee it will give you the option of backing up your data - it depends how it's been set up. If someone built it for you then you probably won't have that option.

£60 isn't a bad price to have someone sort that out for you.

Cheers for the help and advice guys!

have you put a disc of any description in the pc?? If so remove it. thats floppy too.

No disk in any drives

Another option if you have access to another PC is to create a 'live cd' of something like ubuntu linux and then boot from this CD - this will allow you to access the hard drive on your PC and copy any data off it to either CD or USB.

give the fan a good dusting and make sure  nothing as come loose inside your tower this worked for me

i find sitting really still while the C90 cassette is loading is always good advice, lost count of the times i crashed "Horace Goes Skiing" by being a bit fidgety.  ;)

Quoted from moosey_club

i find sitting really still while the C90 cassette is loading is always good advice, lost count of the times i crashed "Horace Goes Skiing" by being a bit fidgety.  ;)

Or try turning it upside down so it reads a different bit of the tape :)

THANK YOu EVERYONE FOR THE ADVICE IT'S WORKING!!!

Thank intercourse!

Took it to pieces hoovered it, plugged it back in and wala!

Quoted from Biccys

Sounds like a boot sector has gone boobs up. Plenty of other things could have happened though. I'd recommend a complete re-install if you can do with losing everything. As has been said above, go to the BIOS and see if the disk is still visible. If it isn't, a sector "flag" could have been corrupted and you'll lose everything anyway. Or you could "accidentally" spill coke down it and get a new one on your house insurance, although this is fraud and I don't condone it.  (It takes loads of coke to kill a laptop though, so a washing up bowl full of it would PROBABLY work....)

My TV took a lot of coffee when I tripped up  ;)

Quoted from ponnyfan

My TV took a lot of coffee when I tripped up  ;)

Is there any police on here ;) Think your cream crackered if their is .LOL

Quoted from tomb

Is there any police on here ;) Think your cream crackered if their is .LOL

Why ?  ponnyfan meant to press the unhappy smiler but hit the wrong button.  I'd love see the police/insurance company prove otherwise  ;)  oops I meant  :(

Hoovered the inside of your Tower?

Well if it worked then what the hell, but I wouldn't advise hoovering it very often. Those tiny little pieces on the motherboard are very sensitive.

If you want to clean the dust out again I suggest getting a can of compressed air and using that. I use that to get the crap from underneath my keys out aswell  :)

Quoted from LeeGTFC

Hoovered the inside of your Tower?

Well if it worked then what the hell, but I wouldn't advise hoovering it very often. Those tiny little pieces on the motherboard are very sensitive.

If you want to clean the dust out again I suggest getting a can of compressed air and using that. I use that to get the crap from underneath my keys out aswell  :)

Can I suggest you just don't pooh on your keyboard in future  ??)

Quoted from Civvy at last

Can I suggest you just don't pooh on your keyboard in future  ??)

;D Very Funny ::)

Quoted from wycombemariner

THANK YOu EVERYONE FOR THE ADVICE IT'S WORKING!!!

Thank intercourse!

Took it to pieces hoovered it, plugged it back in and wala!

;D ;D ;D ;D