Page 1 of Laptop won`t start. Says press F2 or F12

We have a laptop that won`t start. It says press F2 or F12. It worked ok until yesterday then when it turns on it just goes to F2 or F12. It waits for a few seconds then turns off & restarts again onto F2 or F12. Any ideas.

The laptop belongs to a student who doesn`t have the XP disk with her. Can I do a repair using my XP disk, if that is needed?

This item was edited on Thursday, 17th August 2006, 08:48

Sounds more like a hardware fault than a windows issue. If you can get to them just remove and reseat the hard drive and memory module. Memeory is normally under a cover on the bottom of the machine and hard drive will be underneath or on the side.

I`ve taken out both memory & hard drive. I`ve reseated them firmly, but still only goes as far as F2 for setup or F12. to display boot menu

Well the laptop is not booting because the hard disc is corrupt or there is a bootable floppy disc or CD/DVD inserted. If you have no bootable discs (other than hard disc) then a Repair Install should fix it.