system won't boot

I have a HP Pavilion with AMD 1.3 processor, 512 mb ram running ME. Over the past 4 months I would occasionally get an "operating system not found" error and the system would not boot up. Usually it would successfully boot if I turned off the computer and tried again. Sometimes it would take 4 or 5 trys. Today it would not boot. I have run antivirus scans seveal time during problem period and nothing was found.

Is it likely that the hard drive is (or has) failing? If not suggestion for fixing the problem?

Thanks

 

Check you HDD cable, maybe loose, or bad?
What brand HDD, Diagnostic utilities are avaible for free, download & run one.
Most are avaible here at MG on the front page under "Drive Utilities" or get at the manufactures web.

Ya might back up any important stuff before your HDD goes poop.


ME yuck!, should think about moving up to XP. can usually find for $80. Officemax has home for $80 this week, online any time for around $80 even for pro.
HDD's are cheap these days, never pay more than $1 per Gig.

 

I would agree 100% that ME needs to go... I am a huge fan of Windows 2000 Pro but if your more of just a computer user and not to technical with them XP would be just fine. However until you get ahold of another OS have you tried putting in your windows disk and booting to it and trying a REPAIR install... make sure that it's REPAIR and nothing else as anything else will erase your data. The Repair instal will not affect your programs and saved documents.

That was my initial gut instinct when you mentioned it would say "No operating system found" as this could be a result of a bad boot sector.