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Sounds like hard drive failure to me.
What's your boot priority? (Check the BIOS.) Do you have any removable media plugged in? -
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The tablet has no optical drive? That stinks...
Well, here you go: (making a Windows XP boot disk)
Using an OPERATIONAL windows computer (ideally with Windows installed on the same partition as the tablet):
1) Format a USB memory key, it doesn't matter what size, as long as it is blank and free of viruses.
2) Copy c:\ntldr, c:\ntdetect.com, and c:\boot.ini to the flash drive. You will probably have to use the command prompt for this, they are super-hidden system files that don't even show up in Explorer if "Show all files" is checked.
3) If Windows is installed on the same partition on the same (physical) drive on the tablet as the other machine, you can go on to #4. If it isn't, you will need to edit boot.ini (on the flash drive, NOT the hard drive of the operational computer unless you want another dead computer). For example, if Windows is installed on the first disk, partition 2 on the functioning computer, your boot.ini would look like this: (this is the situation on most Dell computers)
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetectYou want to change boot.ini to point to the correct drive and partition. If Windows is installed on the first partition on the tablet, you would change where it says partition(2) to read partition(1). E. G.:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetectIf it's on a different physical disk, change the value in parentheses after rdisk, if it is on a different partition, change the value after partition. Just to make your life interesting, the values for rdisk start at 0, and the values for partition start at 1. That's Microsoft for you... (actually, if you read up on the history, that's a dead consortium including Microsoft back in the early 90's for you, WP:Advanced Risc Computing)
Don't change anything else, unless you see the option /noexecute=anything like above and you know that the tablet PC doesn't have Data Execution Prevention on the processor (it probably does, but I wouldn't count on it, and I wouldn't want to know what would happen if it didn't).
4) Plug the flash key into the tablet. When you see the BIOS startup screen, press whatever button it indicates to choose a different boot device or enter setup and tell it to boot from the USB drive. Now (hopefully) windows will boot. If it doesn't, and it tells you Windows can't be found, try changing the boot.ini until it does work.
5) If it works, copy all the files from the flash key to c:\ on the computer. Then, run chkdsk if there is any chance that the problem could have been caused by a bad hard disk. If it happens again at random and you can't see any reason why, it probably is a bad hard disk, GET YOUR FILES OFF FAST. That's why you back up (I don't do it myself often enough).
Wow, that's really long. Maybe I should post it on my blog or something. I hope it helps.
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