IT Guru's - Assistance please (operating system not found)

Hopefully someone will be able to assist with a small issue on my nephew's laptop. (Samsung P28 running XP Professional - sister bought from work so no discs)

I stupidly removed the SVCHOST.EXE process while trying to get rid of some viruses

Laptop shut down and struggled to boot. I entered the BIOS menu and reset the configuration data and waayhaay Windows booted no problem. I have previously run disc clean up on the laptop, and saw no problem in running the app again. Ran disc clean up, and half way thru the cleanup the laptop stopped... frozen screen nothing happening. I rebooted and got a lovely black screen with OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND.

Google has informed me that I need a Bootable XP Disc to boot windows again but considering no disc and the cost of replacing without knowledge that it would actually work i need some guidance please. I bought an "ultimate boot CD" off ebay which guaranteed (hahaha) to fix 99.9% of PC booting issues (clearly the laptop fell into the .01%)

I downloaded XP Prof off Torrentz (??) - (the iso file) to a disc from my laptop and tried booting the Samsung from the disc.... nope nothing - operating system not found

Reseting the configuration data in the Bios Menu again doesnt help but I did notice this: PRIMARY MASTER: (NONE) SECONDARY MASTER (DVD/CD) - and a quick search on Google reveals problems with a majority of things.

Some have advised that when running the disc clean up I compressed the bootable files?? and thats why its not booting...

Any other options available as to what to do? (I'm a bit hesitant to take it to a PC repair shop as when i drowned my laptop in red wine and then some of the keys stopped working they wanted to charge me £120 to replace the keyboard which was just a bit of a rip off)

any suggestions? TY

[flymo]

considering that there's likely nothing of value on the machine yet, start fresh. Forget about trying to untangle the problem.

You will need an operating system disc. Does it have to be Windows? If not you could easily install Ubuntu or any other Linux OS for free. If you prefer Windows, I would recommend that you buy a legitimate installation disc rather than use something of unknown origin that's likely not legal anyway.

How old is the laptop, what model/spec is it? It sounds suspiciously like it has a fault or at the very least a weak bios battery.

Cheers Flymo

My sister has insisted that it come back in its original state cos i broke it ...

but, if as you say, it could be a weak BIOS battery, then I didn't break it lol
Found a few on ebay and they don't seem to pricey..

Thanks for the Ubuntu shout.. I will try that (I have already used up my monthly GB for internet usage... so i'll try in the wee hours of tomorrow morning when its free)

[Geodude]

Does it have a windows recovery partition on the drive? Might be assigned to one of the 'F' buttons pressed on startup i think mine was f12. Might be worth a look.

nope.. with XP the disc is needed

[Geodude]

Oh well worth an ask. Mine died and mines on xp with no discs and it was fixed by using the recovery partition. Hope you get it sorted.

aah ok, soz.. i was just going with what info I found on the WWW i've tried every F key (read as Function or F**king) while booting to see if i could bring up the rec part

F12 brings up Network boot on the Samsung

[Geodude]

Haha F**king key made me lol Hope you get it sorted, the clever bods should be along soon im just a pc tinkerer and found the recovery partition on mine by accident while *hammering the keys when it spat out windows the last time.




*Hammering of keys not a good idea unless it gives relief of stress

oh i have had many moments of stress relief on the keyboard

that sounds wrong... rephrase.. "moments of stress relief hammering the keyboard"

[hindle8907]

I have a lot of work on at the moment but if you can wait a day or two I can do a fresh install with a legit installation of XP if it has any other faults I will let you know.
I can give you a discounted price being a forum member.
It will come clean - fully up to date with a legit XP and anti virus protection.
Let me know if I can be of assistance.