Hard drive became loud and laboured, computer crashed. Tried F8 F10 which start beep...I was able to access BIOS through F2 but could not find any diagnostic tools so I inserted the recovery media disk (made after I Purchased the sony a few years ago). It brings me to disk 1 of 8 and is checking a few items, when it reaches hard disk I'm prompted that It cannot finish - back square one - wondering if the recovery discs will not solve the problem?

Hi, it's normally F2. Sometimes F12.

Keep pressing F2 or F12 repeatedly as soon as you have pressed the power button on the PC, this may get you into the BIOS

To boot from a CD, DVD or USB device, make sure that the device has boot sequence priority over the hard drive.

BIOS Boot

BIOS (Basic Input Output Subsystem) is a programmable chip that controls how information is passed to various devices in the computer system. A typical method to access the BIOS settings screen is to press ESC, F1, F2, F8 or F10 during the boot sequence.
BIOS settings allow you to run a boot sequence from a floppy drive, a hard drive, a CD-ROM drive or an external device. You may configure the order that your computer searches these physical devices for the boot sequence.
The first device in the order list has the first boot priority. For example, to boot from a CD-ROM drive instead of a hard drive, place the CD-ROM drive ahead of the hard drive in priority.
Before you set boot priority for a USB device, plug the device into a USB port.
To specify the boot sequence:

1. Start the computer and press ESC, F1, F2, F8 or F10 during the initial startup screen. Depending on the BIOS manufacturer, a menu may appear.
2. Choose to enter BIOS setup. The BIOS setup utility page appears.
3. Use the arrow keys to select the BOOT tab. System devices appear in order of priority.
4. To give a CD or DVD drive boot sequence priority over the hard drive, move it to the first position in the list.
5. To give a USB device boot sequence priority over the hard drive, do the following:
   • Move the hard drive device to the top of the boot sequence list.
   • Expand the hard drive device to display all hard drives.
   • Move the USB device to the top of the list of hard drives.
6. Save and exit the BIOS setup utility.
7. The computer will restart with the changed settings.

Boot Priority Options

Some computer manufacturers allow you to select the device that contains the boot sequence from a special device selection menu. The example below uses a Dell system board.
To set boot priority using a device selection menu:

1. When the computer starts to boot up, after the manufacturer's ID screen, press F12 several times. The device selection menu appears.
2. Use the up and down arrows to select CD-ROM or

Try performing hard-drive test from BIOS. Check if test is available, you can access BIOS by pressing down F2 (or F8) when starting up the computer. BIOS should open, from there select hard disk self test, this will perform test for hard-drive.

Your bios seems corrupted. You will probably need to reflash from a thumb drive which is bootable. The F2 should get you to booting screen to access the thumb drive to boot from to flash the bios.

WOW, this sounds so familiar, try changing the CMOS battery, I got the same exact error mess in a old packard bell i refurbished for a friend and a simple change of the cmos batter solved the issue, it even let me install xp with not problem,, its worth a try.... :)

You need to change the boot sequence to start with the CD drive on the BIOS.
To access the BIOS you need to tap F10 while the computer is booting.

Please access BIOS of the Computer by restarting the Computer and tapping the F2, F1 or DEL Key repeatedly as soon as the Computer restarts. Then check if the Hard Drive is detected in the BIOS.

You can reset BIOS by pressing F9 in the BIOS and select F10 to save and Exit.

When you boot up your computer, there are usually tips like "for set up bios press F2, for recovery push F10" and so on. You need to enter the BIOS and see if there is Hard drive recognized. If not, then you need new Hard drive. Good luck!

Try DEL.

Try F1.

With the computer turned-off, hold-down the SPACE BAR.
Turn the computer on, until you get "keyboard error, press <blah> to enter BIOS-setup". Press the <blah> key.

If you have a new hard drive,it must be formatted and the OS must be reinstalled upon it. You are getting this error because there is no OS on it currently, according to what you are telling us here.

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