pc

[feelap]

One of my PC's decided not to work anymore. Its starts up normally but then i get a message saying 'Error reading drive C, Abort Retry, Fail? C:/'

Anybody know what i can do? I dont really wanna take it to a PC repair place

[BillyNoMates]

From the mesage you mention, the PC is not able to read the C:drive.  Obviously the C:drive being the boot disk where it loads up the Operating System from.

There could be whole host of reasons why the PC cannot see or read the drive. Loose cable, lose power connector, the drive itself has failed - again there are many reasons for that.

My suggestion would be to try to boot the PC from a floppy disk - I.e. get the PC running to some extent and run some diagnostics.

[QmunkE]

During the startup, go into the BIOS (press the "Delete" key or "Escape" usually) and check for your hard disk - if it doesn't appear, take the side off your case and check if it has two cables - power and and probably a large IDE ribbon cable. If these are present and correct, I'd say you've got a problem with the drive.

[stevie21]

After doing what QmunkE suggests, if you can't get it to work, then given that it's one of your PCs (plural) I'd take this hard drive out, amend the "jumper(s)" on the back of the hard drive (look up on google for more info) and set it as a slave drive in another of your PCs to see if it works there.

If you don't need any info rescuing from this C:\ then I'd just (ignore the above and) go into BIOS, change the first boot device to "CD ROM" and reinstall Windows from a CD and write over the top of what you have.
This part hinges on QmunkE's point that it is at least recognised in BIOS.

[feelap]

Thank you to one and all for all the advice and help! At the moment im out of the country so i cannot try out any of the methods as yet. As soon as i get back i will try them. buddha01, i get the feeling you have done this before!

[feelap]

buddha01, if ure based in the Reading area then i better give u a call!