OS not found...sounds bad.

[pwrslyd]

Anyway, a friend of mine wants me to fix her computer. I haven't seen it yet, but she says that it will start to boot then she hears a CLICK and the MB says that the operating system cannot be found. I'm thinking that it's a bad HDD from this description, any other ideas before I open it up? She's bringing it over in about an hour...

[pangea33]

Sounds to me like you put your finger right on this one. Make a bootable floppy or cd with the drive manufacturer's diagnostic tools. It doesn't look good though. How old is it?

[pwrslyd]

Couldn't tell ya how old it is. Oh well, we'll see how it goes in a little while, thanks for the 2nd opinion.

[pangea33]

Oops, almost forgot another obvious first test. You'll want to make sure that the IDE cable has a good connection, and see if the drive is found by the bios. Entering the bios would have likely been your first step, but I still wanted to mention it.

[PrntRhd]

Also check there is no floppy disk left in the drive. Not that it ever happens....
;)

[pangea33]

Good call, PrntRhd. That can happen to even the best of us, and if I can remember back that far, my floppy drive also used to click when first accessing a disk. Always look for the simple answers first. :p

[pwrslyd]

Well....turns out it was a 4 year-old Gateway laptop. And wow, was it ever the hard drive. The "clicking" I mentioned earlier was more like a repetative "CLUNK" like something was loose in the HDD. She is a goner, though. The BIOS didn't recognize it (and it was connected well) and my spare notebook HDD worked fine.

[pangea33]

Glad you got it figured out, and that a different brand hard drive worked in that machine. Replacement drives are reasonably priced nowadays. Thanks for the followup.