It's an old pc which has been rebuilt several times so I don't know the specs atm. It wouldnt boot up the other day and hung on the message "Searching for boot records from IDE-0 ... OK " So I was advised by someone to use the win xp install disk and run "FIXMBR" I did this and now I get the message: Missing Operating Sytem. Can anyone help with what to try now as I need to get it booted so I can take some files off it.

Boot to the CD and run a Repair. Enter setup, and then select the Repair option. Don't repair using the Recovery Console. "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

A repair might not even work. It sounds like the hard drive was wiped clean. It didn't have a Master Boot Record or Partition Boot Record. A fresh install might be required. TWIMC NTVDM = NT, Win2K and WinXP Virtual DOS Manager http://kb.iu.edu/data

Guess you could try fixboot or the repair. Could try a live cd to see what is on the hard drive before you get too far along. "Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10

You should reinstall Windows XP from your XP Install Disk.

I left so much out in my first post cause it was late and I was tired. So I'll try and update it here: I managed to fix the Missing operating system message, I then got a message about "ntoskrnl" was missing, I fixed that, that was folowed by about 12 other files that were missing. I fixed all them and was then finally given the Repair option from the Install disk. I tried that, and it deleted the files, created a list of needed files, then copied them across. Next it said that it needed to reboot the pc. Once rebooted I got the Win XP Pro splash screen (not seen in days), then a blue screen saying "The setup is now being restarted ........" then the system reboots and gets stuck in that loop. Rebooting everytime it says "The setup is now being restarted". It does nothing else and is just in that loop. Now I'm at a complete loss as to what to try next.