Long shot here =/

I hear a dunk, comp freezes, *reboot*, comp freezes @ bios boot screen.

after some trial and error it turns out that one of my satas is causing it, along with making a nice Bzzzzzz *stop* *repeat* sound.

So, my drive is screwed... I've been through plenty of dead drives before, though my lovely patas atleast let me recover my stuff of it before they died completely.

So, what are my options here? are am I completely screwed? apart from having it professionally recovered.

your screwed i think but doe's it go to windows

nah, freezes on boot, first window (press del to enter setup part)

can u get to the boot order and is it first
oh can u c the xp seen?

given that it freezes @ bios boot (or whatever you call it), no. Changing the boot order shouldn't make any difference anyway, especially not at that point.

as for you second question... if seen = screen, then no. Bios boot (I'd just call that boot... but ya know, when ya first turn on ya computer, first window you see: *freeze*), not windows boot.

You may have a faulty cmos or bios chip.

It may be worth trying to reset bios by removing battery for a few minutes.

if there is a jumper to clear the cmos, then try it, and then put it back to normal and see if it will boot, from defaults.

If not, I would suggest your bios has gone, in which case it could be a new Mboard.

Just a thought.