Check for floppy disk in drive A.
Your system disk should be drive C (where your operating system resides)
in order for you to boot to the cd you may have to set the boot device in
your bios
it appears your hd may have failed, I suggest you get a new copy of XP and
do a repair install, be aware it needs to be the same type as you currently
have ie if you have home, the new one needs to be home, unless you want to
install new.
To retain your data, I suggest you do a repair install. Hopefully you have
backups of your data.

"1deciple" wrote:

> When power returned and my HP attempted to boot up, it only produced a DOS
> error msg, "Disk boot failure. Insert System Disk and press Enter". I have
> no system disk, but do have the 'System Recovery' disk my HP computer
> recommend I creat the day I first put it into service. However, when I
> insert this disk and hit enter, it goes through a three or four minute
> tapping three times/pause sequence and the same message comes back. When I
> kill the power manually and turn it back on, I see the Windows startup page
> briefly, but it won't boot. When I invoke "Setup" in the BIOS, it offers me
> options to reboot, but none of them work, not even "Safe" mode. So, does
> anyone have any suggestions?
>