Weird XP start up behavior

Trying to advise a friend today ...
She has a system with XP and when started and still in the black screen with white text she kept getting a message "no drive found" which persists for a while and then the computer started up.
When it started up the is an error message "The Procedure Entry Point apsGetInterfaceCount could located in the dynamic link library wlanapi.dll"
She has a wireless connection and the first time the ISP walked her through set up they got it wrong, the second walk through was successful, and she now gets a pop up saying that LAN is disconnected. I think this is all tied together and that one of the connections (she has 2, one works, one gives the error message) should be deleted, but I was not able to get through to the Control Panel before ...
Attempting to manipulate BIOS and remedy the "no drive found" problem I selected boot from hard drive, and now the black screen with white text comes up with "Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and press enter. I seem to have made matters worse and I am not sure quite what I did wrong.
Helpful suggestions would be appreciated.

The wlanapi.dll (wireless LAN) error is often resolved with updated drivers for the modem/router.

What service pack is running? SP2 or SP3?

Your boot errors indicate the BIOS cannot find the hard drive or its Boot Sector.

Finding nothing to boot it asks for a Disc.

Verify the BIOS sees the drive and the drive channel is set as the boot channel.

If the issue persists run the manufacturers diagnostic on the hard drive.

The computer has SP3.
I surmised that BIOS was not seeing the drive, although ... when I put the Windows XP disk in the drive it saw that, and began running set up which I exited pronto.
How do I do this? I am out of my comfort zone here. I was able to open BIOS and make sure that it was set to boot from the hard drive, I think that screen was called something like "select boot device", not sure what a channel is.

First off: Fear not the disc. Setup just loads temporary files for the CD to function properly.

It won't take any action without you instructing it to.

Channels denote the various hard drive ports on the motherboard.

IDE ports are usually like:

0 Primary Master | 0 Primary slave | 1 Secondary Master | 1 Secondary slave | 2 Primary Master | 3 Primary Master | etc.

The first 4 are for older IDE drives and the latter for SATA drives.

Is the hard drive IDE or SATA?

How you alter these settings depends on the BIOS.

If you post the make and model of the motherboard we can look up the manual.

The reason I bailed out of the Windows setup disk was because, if I continued, I would have ended up reinstalling Windows, which does not seem warranted at this stage. I used the disk to see if the computer would boot from it.
As for IDE or SATA, I am not sure, and I know the motherboard is ASUS but not the model number. All that information will have to wait for her to be home (I left a phone message) and our respective body clocks, I think we are 12 hours apart.
I will make another post when I have the information you asked for.
Thanks for the advice thus far.

Hi Jephree,
Finally some more info on this question.
I visited my friend over the weekend and had a brief tinker. When starting the computer I hit F8 in the hope of getting the Windows screen which offers the option of using the last good setup, however I did not get that far. The BIOS does not recognise any drives, it does mention IDE and SATA, and there is mention of 1 SATA. Given the computer is quite new I suspect the HDD is SATA, but I don't know for sure. What I can see is that it is not recognising any HDD but it does recognise the Disk drive,
This suggests a couple of possibilities to me, firstly running the motherboard CD (sorry forgot to obtain the model) in the hope that it will install drivers and hence subsequently recognise the HDD and load Windows, the second is that I could, if you explain how, make a boot disk (I don't know exactly what that is, a little knowledge ... ) from my Windows CD (we both have XP Home).
I await your advice.

Additional info ...
The BIOS mentions IDE primary and slave, and 1 SATA, suggesting the motherboard may be capable of working with either.
When you reply I will paste this whole thread into Word, print it and take it with me, that way I won't forget things like you asking what model mb is in use, and glean other info which may help in sorting this issue.

Get the motherboard ID.

If I have the manual it will make all the difference. I hope.

Most "modern" boards have one IDE channel (Master/slave) used for CD/DVD drives and then additional SATA channels (Masters).

If the BIOS is not "seeing" the hard drive then your CD is not going to "see" it either making any type of "Boot Disk" moot at this point.

We need to verify the BIOS "sees" the hard drive and if it does where it "sees" it.

Beyond the Boot Priority there is another section which lists the Drive Priority. In other words your Boot Priority shows HDD but it is the Drive Priority that says "what HDD". If the BIOS indeed "sees" the drive then we need to verify that said drive is on the top of the Drive Priority list.

Some BIOS also have an IDE/SATA switch that needs to be set for IDE Only/IDE + SATA/SATA Only.

Also some more history might help:

Is this a new computer?

Did it ever work ok?

If it did work what happened to change that?

Did XP crash?

If so what was the computer doing?

How did it crash?

BSOD?

Power failure?

etc.


Let us know if we can clarify further.

Well that is something for me to be getting on with!
The computer is reasonably new (6 months or so)
It did work, I am not sure what happened to change it's behavior.
As I said above I will print the thread and take it with me when I next see the critter.
That way I will have answers, and will post them next time.
Thanks for the help so far, it is appreciated.

Hi Jephree,
Some answers to your questions.
The motherboard is an ASUS P5VD2-VM, and the manual and CD are available.
And the history you asked for:
The computer was purchased in May 2007.
It did, until recently, work ok, apart from the wlanapi.dll error message, which was easy enough to just ok. When the computer is running properly I will disable/remove the redundant LAN connection, and update drivers.
What changed that was an incomplete download, Windows update from what I can tell.
Did XP crash? Yes, after the incomplete update it crashed infrequently, then over time more frequently.
What was the computer doing? Not sure of that, just a bit of web surfing, or emailing. The computer is used infrequently, just to give you an idea, contacting the lady by snail mail would usually be quicker.
How did it crash? From what I was able to learn it just froze, and the reset button was used to restart. Until this evening my friend did not know of either the 3 finger salute, or the task manager.
BSOD? No
Power failure? No

I have seen the invoice from the supplier and the HDD installed is DVR-HD-IDE-SAM80. So IDE
When starting the computer I again tried F8 to get to BIOS, I got a screen which looked like:
Select a first boot device
> Removable
-Floppies
> Hard Disk
-1st Master
>CDROM
-2nd Slave, Lite On DVDRW LH-18A1P
When I select Hard Disk and press enter, the highlighting moves to 1st Master then I am back to a DISK NOT FOUND screen
So harking back to your earlier posts, I think I have verified that BIOS does not see the drive, and I don't know how to change this. If I run the ASUS CD will that, possibly, rectify the situation? Is this the "run the manufacturer's diagnostic" that you referred to?
The BIOS does appear to see the DVDRW drive, so is the boot disk a possible? I could make one from my Win XP disk.
I look forward to hearing from you