I have W2K Pro running on an HP8550c with a Quantum Fireball Plus KA 18.2 hard drive. Until now it's been working without problem for 2 months. I bought this as-is from my now defunct former place of employment, and have not changed anything about it. A problem has now developed. When booting the system either hangs at the "Log on to Windows" screen or on occasion goes to the blue screen Inaccessible_Boot_Device error message. In any case I can't get it to boot, no matter if I try to start it in safe mode, last good configuration, or normally. I can't run chkdsk as suggested because I can't boot the system. I don't have the W2K setup disks (they didn't come with my purchase). I had created W2K recovery disk but it's not a boot disk. I also don't have access to another computer running NT or W2K (I do have a laptop with Win98). Any suggestions before I buckle down and take it to a computer repair place? Thanks

I'd say forget it an reformat the HDD, especially as you don't have the Win2k cd. The "repair place" most likly wont reinstall it for you. Either but the 2k cd or revert to what ever os you have available. Sorry

hi r- as you mentioned, the blue screen warning may be indicative of a failing harddrive, perhaps buying a new harddrive and an OS could do you more good in the long run than taking it to the shop, and the cost could be marginally comparable.

You said you have a Win98 CD? Can you boot off it? That might allow you to run scan or chk disk. Another option for checking the disk is a utilities program such a Norton Utilities. You's probably spend more money going to a shop than buying a Win2000 or XP disc and Norton Utilities...

One more thought. HP machines use part of the hard drive to store program info. You might be able to hit F10 when booting to reload your software and OS...