My computer was working fine untill a few days ago. I turned it on and it wouldnt see my hard drive to boot up
491555
i would just try going to safe mode by pressing F8 before windows xp boot and see if the icons on the desktop comes up, if not i would put the windows xp cd back in and repair the windows.
368582
sounds like your hard drive took a dirt nap. you just need to go buy a new one and hope you can save your data.
93619
You can try booting from a XP installation cd and try repairing the system. Chances are that youre hard disk is damaged, try running a disk diagnose program and see if this is the case. Hope not, cause you'll have to get another one then
937971
If your BIOS supports it will work. Go to BIOS (when starting up press F2) Go to start up or booting, put whatever you want it to boot to first. Just one thing to be aware of. This will not be as fast as a normal hard drive.
942462
its possible that your bios battery is dead and forgot what drive is in your computer, enter bios setup and have it autodetect hard drives.\nif the battery is dead the clock time will be wrong also, and all other bios settings.\nif you reset the clock and hard drive you will be able to boot one time.\nif this is the problem you need to replace the battery, it may cost you $2.\n\n\ngood luck\nTV
624842
You won't be able to tell anything until it is turned on. Check all the drives and make sure they are working, the amount of memory, hard drive (check this in the BIOS). Listen for strange noises with the power supply fan, CPU fan and hard drive.
1167229
check your bios to see if the drive is being properly recognized. You may need to properly partition the hard drive, but that would be unusual if you are installing windows from this century.
757367
You didn't give enough details.  How far into the bootup can you get?  Is it a power problem?  Is the light on the front of your PC on?  Is there an error message on the screen?  Does anything show up on the screen?  What happened right before the problem started?  Was some new hardware of software installed or removed?  Do you have virus protection?  Do you have your Windows recovery disks or the original Windows CD?  Post the question again and include as many details as possible.  Computer problems are too complex so anything you can add will help.
906343
Maybe your hard drive needs to be de-fragged?
1162481
yep thats it no hard drive, cant find boot instructions
866133
THE MOTHER BOARD IS FINE  THE PROBLEM WAS THE BIOS IS NOT SET UP CORRECLTY AND SINCE U DID A RESET ON IT ,NOW U HAVE TO FIGURE OUT HOW IT WAS SET UP, OPEN UP THE COMPUTER TAKE OUT THE CABLES WHERE UR CD AND HARD DRIVE IS, NOW START THE COMPUTER IS GOING TO SAY IN YOUR SCREEN HARDISK NOT FOUND AFTER IT SAYS THAT CONNECT THE HARDDRIVE TO THE COMPUTER TO SEE IF IT RECONIZE IT \nIF DOESNT RECONG IT  THEN GO TO BIO WITH THE COMPUTER OPEN AND THE HARDRIVE STILL IN THERE AND COM STILL ON IN THE BIO SET UP GO TO HARDWARE AND THERE GOING TO BE A OPTIONS WHERE II SAY DISABLE OR ENABLE ,ENABLE THE THE HARDRIVE AND THEN SAVE WHERE IT SAYS SECURITY AND THAT IT
539811
you may have the first symptoms of you hard drive failing\n\nis your system old\n\nwhen you shut own your system can you restart straight away and it goes into windows? if yes - basically!!  you hard drive has to warm up before it will kick in and read - that why it takes a few times to turn the pc on and off before it will start - from a cold start\n\nback up your data be prepared for a hard drive failure\n\nif your pc will not start up after shutting down - you may have a bad sector on your disk - try doing a scan\n\nclick on my computer - right click over you hard drive - then click properties - then click on tools - click on the option to scan the hdd for errors - make sure both the check boxes underneath are checked\n\nthis will do a scan next time you reboot you system \n\nlook for any errors - this will take some time\n\nhope this helps\n\nps\n\ncheck in your bios - some bios versions have a hdd checker - eiher a short version or a extended - if so try this\n\n;)
843172
check the cables and power. those are the most likely culprits, especialy if the computer has been moved or jarred.  failing that go into bios and see if the computer recognizes the hard drive as there and can read it.  if you need files from it, attach it as a slave and see if you can access it....if not its probably a screwed pooch from a virus and needs to be replaced.
720033
There may have been catastrophic damage to your system. I suggest backing up your data and reinstalling Windows off the OS disk that came with your computer.
286515
I've seen this message before and the cause was the cable being used to connect the hard drive to the motherboard.  Try to swap out the cable and see if it works.  \n\nOtherwise, you might have a hard drive problem.
1046358
It sounds like there is a lose connection between the hard drive and the motherboard.  Check your ribbon cable.  If that is not it maybe do a chkdsk/f to check for any errors the drive may have.
100825
Go into system tools go to the part that says pick date to go back to when the computer was running right then it will talk you through the rest it will restore your computer to the day that it was working good