In that case you may be dealing with be a LAN boot scenario. The LAN card or
its boot chip might be defective. You could try removing the card, or in the
PC BIOS you could probably disable the LAN boot option (or just change the
boot device priority) but it could turn out that the OS on the PC is not
bootable on its own.

"Robert Bowie" <RobertBowie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0D3F4F26-0909-4893-BAEE-7929D88C63FE@microsoft.com...
> the computer was hooked up to a server at a company.it runs bios then runs
> some preboot software that tries to establish contact with the old
> server.
> it cannot receive a bootfile name and then tries to launch xp and cannot.
> is
> there away to get rid of the preboot software that runs after bios and
> just
> get the computer to run on its own o/s if it is even capable? in other
> words
> no DCHP jusy xp
>
> "RalfG" wrote:
>
>> DHCP, usually from an external source, allocates TCP/IP addresses. MAC
>> addresses are unique values that are hard-coded into network
>> adapters/devices. DHCP will only come into play when the operating system
>> is
>> running, not before. You might have a defective network adapter in the
>> computer, or if it's a PCI card it may just need re-seating or cleaning
>> of
>> the contacts.
>>
>>
>> "Robert Bowie" <Robert Bowie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:2E77A500-A8B4-4A09-B558-A1E25A705402@microsoft.com...
>> > my computer loads bios then tries to find a mac address using DHCP. It
>> > can
>> > not connect, next it shows the xp boot screen and appears to be
>> > loading.
>> > Next i get a blue windows screen telling saying restarting setup and it
>> > does
>> > this over and over if i let it. Is there an operating system on my
>> > computer
>> > and how can i stop it from searching for a mac address. Also if i
>> > install
>> > xp
>> > is ther a way to save my data?
>>
>>
>>