Help, I think my computer died

**baronmom** · 09-12-2003, 10:15 AM

Today my son went to start up our 2nd computer to play his games on. When he started it up, the gateway symbol comes up, and then it says that Operating system is not found. I have nothing in the disk or cd slots so my quess is that the hard drive took a major crap. Am I right? If not, how can I fix it. I hate to not have a second computer as the kids only play there games on that one. It is not even connected to the internet. I am not totally computer literate so I have no idea what to do. I would appreciate your input.

Traci

**Sara Noel** · 09-12-2003, 11:30 AM

When you turn it on can you hear your hard drive? I'd unplug everything. Disconnect and reconnect all connectors (to computer and to power source) and see what happens then.

**baronmom** · 09-12-2003, 11:44 AM

I did that. You can hear the hard drive running, but it doesn't sound quite right.

**Gabe** · 09-12-2003, 01:04 PM

It's possible that the hard drive has some kind of failure.
Do you have an option to load on safemode for windows?

It is also possible that your BIOS for some reason is not recognizing the hard drive.

Do you know how to load the BIOS?
If you know how...you have a better chance of finding the problems.

Basically a BIOS will load your hardware devices on the computer on bootup. If there is a failure on the bios or on the hardware you should see a message about it in the BIOS.

How old is your computer? Maybe an updated BIOS would fix this. If you can get the version of the BIOS you can go on the manufacturing website of the computer brand and download an updated BIOS.

**baronmom** · 09-12-2003, 06:32 PM

It is about 5 years old. I have a friend that is coming to visit in October. He is a computer wiz so I think that I will have to have him check it out. I know what you are saying with the BIOS. I think that I had that pulled up, but I have no idea what is suppose to be there and what is not. When the Gateway logo is loading, you have an option to press f1 or the tab key I think and it will put that screen up. Thanks for you imput. At least I can kinda tell him where to start. Computers are not my strong point. I can find my way around a working one, but when it comes to trying to fix a problem, I am not comfortable changing any of the settings. I did that one time, and ending up having to take it to Gateway and have them fix it.

**KKCondrey** · 09-12-2003, 06:50 PM

Our computer said that when we got back home after being gone for Christams. We had to buy a new hard drive. (Luckily we found one with a $30.00 rebate at office depot so it only cost us $40.00 after the rebate came back.