Hardware/Windows question

[gliderman.one at verizon.net]

On boot up, my XP laptop two days ago, started displaying a message  
"Can not find operating system".

If I turn off and try again, on the second to fourth try, windows is 
found on the hard drive and boots up, seemingly fine, and filePro and 
other stuff seem to run fine.

Any idea of what this indicates and what the solution might be? 

Charles Day