Thursday, October 1, 2009

Help me! Technology Emergency!

My hard drive appears to have disappeared off of my old computer. When I turn it on, I get a screen that says

Primary hard disk drive 0 not found.
No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility.

What's going on? I hadn't backed up my data in a while because I knew I was getting a new computer, and I figured it would all get backed up as I transferred it, anyway. I got the new computer, hadn't touched the old one for about a week, and when I went to turn it on tonight, all I got was that screen. What could have happened to it during a week of disuse? And is there any way to fix it and especially to recover my data? I don't care much about the computer, obviously, as I have a new one now, but I certainly want my stuff my back if there's any way to get it back.

Any techno-philes out there who can lead me in the right direction?

4 comments:

Bill West said...

Wow, what a nightmare.
Wish I could help but I don't gave a clue on that. I hope somebody comes
up with an answer for you!

Kathleen O'Hara said...

Thanks, Bill! I've had a couple people tell me they've been able to recover their data after similar incidents, I just have to figure out how to do that!

geneabloggers said...

Katie

I think the best thing to do is to take it to a computer shop (a reputable one like GeekSquad, Geeks on Call, etc.) and just asked for the data to be recovered. Your issue could be anything from a loose wire connection to a total hard drive failure.

Question: did you try several times to boot up the computer? The message was always the same? Any recent changes between the last time the computer worked?

Kathleen O'Hara said...

Answer: I did try multiple times, on successive days, to boot up the computer, each time with no luck and an identical error message. And no, the computer literally hadn't been touched since the last time I'd used it. I can't imagine how anything would have changed.

I am going to have to bring it somewhere professional as soon as I can.