Patriot laptop help

homerjay2005

hey, need a bit of help with these, a friend gave me a patriot laptop to look at - on boot, gets an error -

"boot failure

insert boot diskette into A :

press any key when ready "

it just stops at that, i think that the HDD is Gone, i have taken it out and tried on an external usb case, its not recognised. however,i get the same error when the HDD is out, but im not able t enter the BIOS, surely, even with the HDD out, i should be able to enter the BIOS? if i keep tapping f2, it just loops back to the error, any suggestions on how to solve this?

Ruu_Old

Are you sure you are typing the correct key for the BIOS, sometimes its DEL (for just Dells I think) or different keys? Just an idea. Also, have you got a bootdisk you can try. If so then the Master Boot Record might be corrupt, the bootdisk will start and then change directory to the C: at the C prompt type fdisk /mbr. If it isn't recognised though it may be just gone but theres just some ideas for you.

daywalker

the usual key for getting into the bios on patriots is DEL.

homerjay2005

thanks for the replies,
replaced the hdd and all seems to be ok.there not the best of laptops though tbh!!