when my friend boots his computer it starts booting then it stops and displays atttempting boot from hard drive (c:)

under that message there is a white blinking underscore cursor but nothing happens after, what should i do

Can you try "Safe mode"? Press "F8" when you boot computer

it doesnt get that far, i cant boot from a boot disk or cdrom either, when i try to boot from a floppy it says attempting boot from floppy a: then nothing happens

Go into the bios and reset it to default settings and then try and see what it does...post back

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Possible that the harddrive is not running at its normal speed, freezing up or slowing down.
My computer took 20 min. to boot the other day.
I was watching the HDD activity indicator light,
and it would remain on, and not rapidly blinking.
Mechanical devices do have problems.

Harddrive manufacturers have software for download for testing HDD.

the HDD keeps making a long decending beep, im guessing it means that the HDD crashed, is that right?

Mechanical devices do have problems.
Mine started going out 1 yr after new.

heres what happened from the beginning.

he pulled the HDD out and put it in another computer and tried booting to it from that computer but it wouldnt(not sure why), then put it back in and tried booting to it but it wouldnt and threw the error that i talked about, hope that helps.

i have stripped the computer to barebones, HDD and RAM and thats it, video card is onboard, sound card is on board, its a compaq presario 5000 with 1.2 Ghz celeron

Defragmented drives work less to get data.

Beep codes are set to certain bios manufacturers...so each is different! but more than likely it could be that it crashed or that the anti-virus in the bios is turned on, which will sometimes cause it to take long time to boot..

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Crap happens at the wrong time ?

BIOS Error Beeps, Messages, and Codes-

check the jumper settings on the drive and make sure that they are set right...the newer boards prefer cable select but the older boards want it jumpered properly as master, master w/slave, cable select, slave.

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Unplug the computer, open the case, unplug the data cable to the hard drive - be careful, it's easy to rip the data cable at the connector while doing that, especially if it's 80 wire. Plug in the computer with the case still open. Insert a bootable floppy in the floppy drive. Don't put any bootable CD in the CD drive. Try booting with it.
If it boots with the floppy, the problem is probably the hard drive, or it's data cable - examine the cable for rips at the connectors (which severs some of the wires). If in doubt, try another or new data cable, hooked up the same way. Does the hard drive spin?
If it spins, check the power supply etc. (see below).

If it still stalls, shut down, unplug the computer, remove the data cable from the cd drive. Plug in the computer with the case still open. Insert a bootable floppy in the floppy drive. Try booting with it.
If it boots with the floppy, the CD drive is probably the culprit - check it's data cable - a dying CD drive can cause a long delay on bootup if it's motor no longer spins fast enough for the mboard and/or windows to recognize it properly, or even a stall if it's board is fried.
If it seems okay, check the power supply, etc. (see below).

You may get extra delays while booting when either or both data cables are disconnected if the detection of drives is not set to Auto for those drives in the bios, and error messages that the HD or CD drive is not found - you may have to go into the bios and set them to Auto detection in that case.

Wonky behavior can also be caused by a dying power supply, or a dead or too slow cpu fan or PS fan or a clogged cpu heat sink that causes overheating, possibly frying the cpu.

While you've got the case open, check that all the fans are spinning properly, the heat sinks are cleaner rather than filthier, and the voltages and temperatures.

If the motherboard has a monitoring chip, look in the bios to see what the current voltage and temperature readings are - a voltage more than ten percent over or under is a worry; if more than fifteen to 20 percent, get another power supply NOW!

If it has no monitoring chip,
check the voltages at the power connectors to the drives (a spare connector will do) to see how close the voltages are to 5 and 12 volts - the middle wires are the - polarities doesn't matter which of the two.

i tried a different HDD but it wont boot either

Does the indicator light for the HDD light up, or blink ???

when booting from floppy i get the 601-diskette controller error

the controller on the mobo must be bad

the indicator light is on steadily and doesnt blink

trying to boot from CD, it wont

its weird cause this worked just fine until he took it out and put it in another computer then put it back in his

HD light on steady means an IDE problem. If he removed the drive and reinstalled it and it doesn't work, you had best check the connections as it appears to be hooked up wrong.

k, ive tried 5 HDDs and none of them worked, all 5 of these were put into that other system by him and none of them worked, so i took one that i knew worked and put it in and it worked just fine, is it possible for a mobo to short out or ruin HDDs?

It is possible for a shorted system to short out everything that tries to run on that system....especially electronics with chips.

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"under that message there is a white blinking underscore cursor but nothing happens after..."

All that means is the bios has stalled the boot process. It doesn't necessarily mean the hard drive doesn't work, but if it was correctly connected it can indicate that, but many harmless things can cause that.

"....i cant boot from a boot disk or cdrom either, when i try to boot from a floppy it says attempting boot from floppy a: then nothing happens....."

The actions the bios takes can occur in an order you don't expect, in this case a stall, and can be caused by something else - the bootup may have halted because of a bad HD, or an improper connection to a hard drive - it may eventually try booting the floppy after a long wait and possibly an error message.
The floppy disk must be bootable.
If it is, and you see the things you normally see while booting up to that point, and if you get a message similar to system not found, or bootable disk not found, it simply means that particular boot disk was not quite formatted in a way that particular drive expects (it may have been formatted in another floppy drive) - try another boot disk.

These were posted while I was composing my last post:

"the HDD keeps making a long decending beep, im guessing it means that the HDD crashed, is that right?"

If it actually comes from the hard drive, YES!

"when booting from floppy i get the 601-diskette controller error
the controller on the mobo must be bad"

You can get strange errors but they are false in some circumstances.

"the indicator light is on steadily and doesnt blink"

If you mean the HDD led, that can mean the HDD is bad, or the connection to it is bad, but other things such as using the wrong ram can cause the HD to do that.

"trying to boot from CD, it wont"

That doesn't necessarily mean anything - it has to set to be before the hard drive in the boot order in the bios Setup - if it isn't it won't boot with the HD connected - if you're sure it is, yes, that's not good.

".. is it possible for a mobo to short out or ruin HDDs?"

Not usually, but yes, it's possible, but the real culprit is often a wonky power supply putting out too much voltage, or shorting out, which fried the mboard, or the PS can fry a hard drive's board and any other components connected to it, all on it's own, without the data cable even being connected.

Try another PS you know is good with just the mboard ram and floppy drive, and boot with a boot disk - if it won't boot try another floppy drive (they and CD drives tend to fry first if the PS voltages are too high) - if it still win't boot, the mboard is fried. You would have to try the cpu in another board to see if it is fried.

i know the mobo is fine cause i can boot to a HDD that i knew worked and it worked just fine, ill try what u suggested, also im gonna try booting to those drives in anotehr computer to see if the drives are actually bad or not, ill keep ya posted.