No bootable devices found-Press F1 to retry, F2 to enter setup

I am using a couple or year old Dell machine. I am getting an error message that says "No bootable devices found-Press F1 to retry, F2 to enter setup message." When I press F2 then I am getting the below listed under primary hard drive 80gb:

copy _registry_machine_software c:\windows\system32\config\software
AND
copy _registry_machine_system c:\windows\system32\config\system

I tried to use the recvery console but was still getting the same message. Can anyone please help. Thanks

I dont think its a registry issue, it seems more like a damaged drive, in the boot sector, or just damaged boot sector. So what you can do is use some sort of imaging software and backup the drive and use a boot Cd like BartPE or any other to copy your files first and the try to do a repair installation from the Windows XP CD.

After pressing the F1, if it still fails to boot and show the drive in the Bios setup, then press F12 and choose the drive to see if it will boot or not. If it is not booting then select diagnostics after pressing F12, and you will have the option to test the drive in the F12 menu, if not the choose the utility partition to run diagnostics.