Remove disk and press any key - Old Laptop

[mrhowdeedoo]

I have an old AST laptop, (I have no idea what memory, processor, etc. this has) and when I turn it on, it gives the floppy disk message. "Non-system disk error. Replace and press any key". It does not have any removable disk in it, and I've even removed the floppy drive itself. Still nothing.

I'd appreciate any answers.

Thanks,
mrhowdeedoo

[doctorgonzo]

That means the hard drive is blank. You will need to install an OS on it.

[mrhowdeedoo]

Thing is though, I was using this computer and it worked fine. I shut it down, started it up again later, and this message comes across. Would the hard drive erase itself on a whim?

mrhowdeedoo

[doctorgonzo]

If the drive is failing, yes. Are you sure that there are no floppies or CDs in their drives? Is the hard drive showing up in the BIOS?

[mrhowdeedoo]

How would I check the BIOS?

[glc]

Just as with desktops, bios access at bootup is a keypress - which varies widely. I've seen F1, F2, F9, F10, DEL, ctrl-alt-esc, ctrl-alt-ins, ctrl-s - and I'm sure there may be others. Some older laptops require a DOS bootdisk provided by the manufacturer to get into setup.

[minsonngo]

I used to get this problem with a few systems almost every day at work (at a high school with tons of older computers systems). First thing is to check and see if there is a diskette in the FDD. If not then the only way to resolve it is to reformat and reinstall the O/S (we had a ghost image which made everything real easy). If the problem reoccurs on the same system (HDD) repeatedly, it just means that the HDD is dying and needs to be replaced.