Computer XP/Hard Drive Error

[teigyr]

In the hopes that someone in this brilliant group has any ideas that I haven't thought of....

I have a Gateway PC that's about 7 years old. It's old but it's functional for what we use it for. It has had drama at times but it has behaved for the past year. It has never exhibited memory or disk problems, however. Most of my work on it has been updating drivers, etc.

Today when I turned it on, the hard drive was not responding. I did a few reboots, I smacked it on the sides, and I did a boot from the disk drive hoping that would trigger something. It is not making start-up noise so that is a BAD sign, I know. I checked the boot menu and the BIOs just thinking something quirky might have happened. Also, we have a firewall and virus software that is updated and while I haven't ruled out the potential of a virus, I think that's unlikely.

This weekend I'm going to check all the connections. I'll open it up and reseat everything and check the wiring. If it's a bad sector (which I'm thinking it isn't due to the lack of overall response) I can check it for errors from DOS. To this point, however, I haven't been able to get to a DOS prompt.

Any other ideas? I suppose if I run out of inspiration we could take it to get fixed (all depends on how much I feel like messing with it) but then again we aren't adverse to replacing it. It's probably cheaper (and better) to replace than to repair.

[Mr. Bloom]

7 Years is a VERY long life for a computer. I'd try to recover what you can from the hard drive and get a new one.

Good Luck

[mimitabby]

yeah, what he said.

[teigyr]

Yeah, I think it's the inevitable. It also is a challenge. There haven't been any signs of Things To Come with the beastie which makes me think it is something like a loose wire or dust or something easy. That being said, I'm looking at other systems though I don't need a monitor and I am saying no to Vista at this point in time.

Part of me thinks though that it IS fixable....I generally check it periodically and have found no signs of corruption. While I have a laptop so there's no emergency on the repair or purchase, the laptop is four years old so it is on its way out too.

[mimitabby]

Hey, wiggle the wires! you have nothing to lose.

good luck

[teigyr]

I smacked it...maybe a wiggle is kinder and gentler?

At least the cats don't go up there. My parents computer died due to cat urine. Try explaining that one? Especially when it is under warranty?