Question : Problem: Presario 2100 won't boot from HD or CD. Possible BIOS scramble or heat?

Compaq Presario 2100 brought to me running very slow with XP home installed. OS was ate up with malware...backed up data and reinstalled XP.

2100 was still running very slow, seemed HD wasn't tranfering data fast enough. Installed different HD and loaded fresh copy of XP. It was running fine. Loaded all the drivers, SP2 and updates...no problems....

Left laptop on over night.....MISTAKE. Went to check it out this morning and it will not boot.

Powers on with no beeps. Displays network boot PXE-E61 media test failure.. No operating system found. All fans apear to come on as it warms up. Checked boot order.....CD, HD, Removable Drive.....its correct.

Tryed a third HD with on change.....I do not remeber seeing the network boot failure before leaving laptop on all night.

Possible overheat scambled the BIOS or HD controller?

Answer : Problem: Presario 2100 won't boot from HD or CD. Possible BIOS scramble or heat?

It sound like your motherboard is not supplying the necessary power to your HDD or CD-Rom.

Are you able to insert a disk, and does it spin-up or do nothing?  Does the tray eject when you press the eject button?

I would recommend testing the power supply with a digital voltmeter.  See if the voltage is with specs.

If the PS is good, then you are more than likely looking at a bad motherboard.

Do you have a USB floppy drive?  You could try a boot disk if you have one available.