Hi Allan
It sounds to me like the BIOS just can't find the boot drive. Now that could be that it just isn't recognising it as in if you change the mode ie IDE to AHCI or it doesn't know where to look for it. The mode must be set to whatever you had it as when you installed Windows.
Make sure thet in the BIOS the floppy is set to "None", the boot sequence and boot priority are both showing your boot drive as the primary drive.
Found it!!!........Didn't use enough Brasso!.... there's only about 13,000 different combination in bios, so after trying all of them twice I new something was dodgy in Denmark, after trying a USB-DVD with the 64-bit install disc with the same result, I smelt a rat........the 32-bit disc fired up.
Was able to polish the damaged disc enough to get another install out of it or two, but I think it's toast, lots of little micro-fissures everywhere across the disc.
Does anyone out there have the low-down on generating another legitimate copy (DVD) from Bill through official channels or knows of another method to replace my install disc (Windows Ultimate 64-bit) .........Would you be so kind ??.....If you need the Activation key, it's A45F-22CX- only joking!
Aussie Allan