gotta computer problem here!!!

[Mars]

I turned on my computer today and I got a black screen that said:

 

Drive not ready- system halted

 

which I have no idea what that means?!.. so I was wondering if

 

any of you guys could help me, Id really appreciate it thanks

[insane_alien]

You have a lazy harddrive give it 5 minutes to wake up.

[Mars]

You have a lazy harddrive give it 5 minutes to wake up.

 

you mean I just have to leave the black screen with the messege for 5

 

minutes, and then my computer will stat normally?!..

[insane_alien]

nah just restart the damn thing i was just kidding around with the "give it 5 minutes to wake up" thing

[Kermit]

Out of curiosity, if your computer isn't working, how are you online?

[Kermit]

See if this helps:

 

If you have Windows XP, press F8 before the Windows XP splash screen with the moving bar on it, you'll get into safe mode. Select "Last Known Good Configuration" and press enter.

 

Helped me out today, had a few problems.

[Mars]

nah just restart the damn thing i was just kidding around with the "give it 5 minutes to wake up" thing

I tried restarting it, but it didnt work

 

Out of curiosity, if your computer isn't working, how are you online?

and this isnt my computer

 

See if this helps:

 

If you have Windows XP' date=' press F8 before the Windows XP splash screen with the moving bar on it, you'll get into safe mode. Select "Last Known Good Configuration" and press enter.

 

Helped me out today, had a few problems.[/quote']

 

ok, thanks Ill try that later when I get home but what will happen after

 

the "Last Known Good Configuration" thing?

[H2SO4]

as far as i know it, last know good configuration will just start up your computer wth the last configuration that worked for it. That simple. But, it may be a hardware problem, like maybe the motor (which i doubt) in your harddrive died. Maybe the read arms are not able to move. Seems far fetched but it might just be a dead HDD.

[Callipygous]

not really far fetched at all. it depends how old the harddrive is. if its about 5 years old, yeah, you should expect it to die. we got that message all the time in my programming class. it usually means you need a new one.

[Kermit]

Actually, i've had my computer for nearly four years now, and it's working even better than when I first bought it with all my tweaking. I doubt hardware has a lifetime like that, probably if you treat it right it'll work for quite a while.

[Pangloss]

You might think that, but I'm afraid it's just not the case. Hard drive life-spans are a bit like the half-life of radioactive particles. Some of them fail right away; others fail only after a long period of time. A guesstimated average, called "Mean Time Between Failure", is typically posted on a label on top of the drive, and usually those numbers are typically something like 100,000 hours. So after four years, more than 35% of the drives (if running 24/7) will have already failed. And somebody has to own those drives, right?

 

So no, it's not unusual at all.

[Callipygous]

Actually, i've had my computer for nearly four years now, and it's working even better than when I first bought it with all my tweaking. I doubt hardware has a lifetime like that, probably if you treat it right it'll work for quite a while.

 

harddrives have limited lifespans. it does depend on several things, including how much use it gets and what quality you bought, but in general 10 years is the most you should expect. for a computer thats being used several hours a day and wasnt the best quality to start out with (like the ones in my class) the 2-4 years we managed to get out of them was about as much as we could hope for. 5 years is more like an average.

[Scootie]

Any time I’ve ever had error messages that I didn't understand I went to google and typed in the exact message in "quotes". This brings up a ton of info on the message.

[Scootie]

I don't mean to say that the guys here don’t know what they are talking about. I know there are MCSE's (my heros) and a welt of knowledge here; just that google is a great way to get information to explain an error

[H2SO4]

google is a great way to get information about just anything. Most people dont know that you can put just about anything in google and get information about it, as long as you word it right.

[Klaynos]

in a space of about 3 years I had 4 hard disks break on me in 3 differnt machines (only using one machine as my main machine at any one time) Was really rather odd, I am not a backup fanatic!

[H2SO4]

to tell me the truth, i cant stand it when people tell me i should backup everything, maybe its becuase i dont have any realy important stuff in my computer.

[Klaynos]

I do it to save annoyances when my next disk breaks, it's so much easier.