Need Serious Help

[ShortThrow]

Okay, so I went to start up my computer this morning and I recieved the 'missing ntldr: press ctrl alt del to restart' message. I then went into my bios to check on whatever and selected the 'reset to optimum settings' option and ran through that. Now when I try and start my comp., nothing happens. The computer will turn on and make what sounds like a wierd HD noise that it hasn't made before; and then it will just sit there. My monitors colored lights indicate that it isnt even recieving a signal from the computer.

What the **** is wrong with this thing and what can I do? If I open up the computer is there some kind of manual hard reset or something? Even when I insert the XP CD nothing happens
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If it matters I'm running Xp

 

[ShortThrow]

to the top, if anyone has any ideas please post. This is pretty urgent for me.

 

[Juice Daddy]

you probably didn't need to reset the bios...

sound like your hard drive failed..

what are your system specs?

 

[actionsave]

you might need data recovery... before going that route... make sure you try everything before you send it off.... i posted in another thread... since they helped me out...

www.salvagedata.com

 

[Law]

I think what happen went you get a NTLDR missing could be a corrupted harddrive or files. What you also did was change your BIOS setting back, you might have to check your BIOS setting again to make sure you have enable the correct features like primary video card, boot priority to CD first then Harddrive. Boot with your XP installation disk and choose repair, use fixboot and fixmbr to fix the NTLDR file.

 

[jeremy]

so your saying that after you loaded optimum settings in bios it powered on and the monitor got no signal? from some reason i have feeling your mobo have onboard graphics and you also got a graphic card right? if so then connect the vga connector to the onboard graphics and then set up the bios right to use the card instead . might wanna look in your mobo manual on how to reset the cmos via an onboard jumper , open the case and listen to it closly is the hard drive making strange sound or is it something else?

 

[ShortThrow]

Honestly I have no idea what my system specs are, a friend built it for me about a year ago and it has worked flawlessly up until this morning , so I never asked any questions because it did everything I needed it to.

As far as the other stuff, I'm not positive it's the HD making the noise, but it's just a quick 4 toned jitter, it doesn't sound like anything is broken though.

I have no manual for the mb, so I don't know how to reset it that way.
is there a common method for doing that? or if I uninstalled my HD and then turn on the computer and then turned off and reinstalled would that do anything?

What are my other options, would CompUSA or anyone like that be able to help me out?

Edit: my comp worked fine last night, I didn't install any new programs or anything like that. Basically right now, I'll hit the power button on my tower; it will power up, if I put a disk in the disk will spin, but the monitor shows no connectivity to a computer

 

[jeremy]

as ive alredy said open the case and listen/look closely and find out where exactly the sound comes from , as for the cmos reset read here http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=88668 , and no that wont help , you can get the manual from its manufacturer site in pdf format the model/company is usally printed somewhere on the board , anyway i cant believe you dont know what you got. alot of ppl dont know what exact parts they have but the specs that at least they do first time i hear on such a thing , anyway lets see if my theory on the graphic issue is true just look if you got a graphic card connected to some slot on the mobo it should be easy to tell then also look if you got the same type of connector onboard and see whats printed on the chip near it

 

[Juice Daddy]

not to insult your intelligents or anything.. but IS the monitor plugged in?

and has the hard drive ever made noises like that before (if so... I'd assume it's failing...)

and to reset the bios physicaly on the motherboard...

look for a jumper on labled |cmos|normal 1-2|reset 2-3|
or something like that...

switch it to the reset one.. and back, then the bios would be reset

 

[ShortThrow]

Lol, yes the monitor is plugged in, that's the first thing I checked. As far as specs go, yeah, the only thing I know is that I have 512, 120 gig, and a sempron 3200(I think). I'll try out what all of you guys said after I shovel the driveway, we got a **** ton of snow.