I have a Sony VAIO 550. I was using it today and all of a sudden it froze up and I had to reboot. It started to reboot when a message appeared.. Boot disk failure. I put in the system disk and it asked me about the non partion. It asked me to continue.. I said yes. Then it starts but then it says.. No fixed disks presents. What happened? Any help will be appreciated as I am going crazy trying to figure this out. Thank you.

Repair the master boot record by using the FIXMBR command from the Windows XP Recovery Console. NOTE: For additional information about an error message that you may receive when you use the FIXMBR command, view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 266745 Error Message When You Run fixmbr Command WARNING: If your computer is infected with a virus and you use the FIXMBR command, you may be unable to start the computer. Before you use this command, ensure that the computer is not infected with a virus. If the primary boot partition is a FAT partition, use the FIXBOOT command from the Windows XP Recovery Console to write a new boot sector on the system partition, and then use the FIXMBR command to repair the master boot record. You may also use Windows XP Setup to repair the installation. To do this, follow these steps: Use the Windows XP CD-ROM to start your computer. On the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER to set up Windows. Press F8 to agree to the license agreement. Use the ARROW keys to select the Windows installation that you want to repair, and then press R. Windows Setup repairs the installation files, Windows automatically restarts, and then Setup completes the repair of your Windows XP installation.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654 how to use the recovery console using the xp cd.

I do not have the xp cd. I have the five cds from Sony. With the first one being the system recovery disk. But it won't let me get past the first cd. I keep getting that message...no fixed disks present. Then it takes me back to the beginning again and over and over again.

Go here and make the 6 startup floppies for XP and it will let you access recovery console... http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310994 JIM