I tried to turn my pc on this morning and just got the 'please insert the boot disc' message, it was originally on xp but now runs vista ultimate and has done happily for 2 years now. If I run the vista disc to do a repair or restore, it cant find the hard drive. I really need this sorting as it has all my baby pics on

What can I do?

Does the drive appear in the BIOS Setup Menu? How old is this computer? Has the CMOS battery been changed?

If your primary concern is the data on the drive, the safest thing to do is to remove the hard drive, and install it as a secondary drive in another computer, or into an enclosure attached to another computer, then copy off your data.

Tell us more about the computer itself.

Originally Posted by Digerati

Does the drive appear in the BIOS Setup Menu? How old is this computer? Has the CMOS battery been changed?

If your primary concern is the data on the drive, the safest thing to do is to remove the hard drive, and install it as a secondary drive in another computer, or into an enclosure attached to another computer, then copy off your data.

Tell us more about the computer itself.

No sign of it in the bios menu, the computer is 4 years old and has ran perfectly since I bought it, apart from the last couple of months when it lost power and restarted, this happened 2 or 3 times. The battery has never been changed, the computer is a Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo P 3.4ghz pentium 4.

If the drive is not seen in the BIOS then it could very well be a bad drive. The date and time are correct, right? You need to check the obvious first and make sure the data cable has not wiggled loose, the power cable is securely attached, and that the disk is spinning up. If the disk is not spinning, you may have a power supply problem. If the disk has power, is spinning, and the data cable is secure, then it could be the drive controller - part of the motherboard.

Yep the date and time are ok, I moved the pc from another room the day before so I checked if anything had come loose and everything seem solid. I think it is spinning on power up so it must be knackered?

It does not sound good. You could try resetting the BIOS, but it sounds like the drive or controller. Sorry.

So if I buy a new hard drive and it works fine that will confirm the old one is kaput, is there any way of rescuing anything on the old drive? Could I plug it into a laptop to test?

Originally Posted by as90

is there any way of rescuing anything on the old drive? Could I plug it into a laptop to test?

Sure, you can plug it into a laptop (with the necessary adapter) and test it, and that is a good idea to confirm if it really is a bad drive. But that does not mean you can rescue anything from it if it is bad. Certainly worth a try, but don't build up your hopes too high. To glean anything from a damaged drive takes special skills and equipment and can be very expensive.