Hi, I'm not exactly extremely tech savvy, so please bear with me . Note, I believe (not entirely sure because I'm not home at the moment) my desktop is a Dell 4600 running XP. Earlier today while I was checking my email on AOL using Google Chrome, I was going to go to use the games section because I was bored. Well, trying to play a game, the site didn't like Google Chrome so I opened Internet Explorer and used that instead (both still open). At the same time McAfee was updating. All of a sudden, as the internet explorer was loading, the computer completely froze. I rebooted the computer, but it stalled while on the Dell logo, eventually leading to a screen with the message: "SATA Primary Drive 0 not found, Strike F1 to continue F2 to run the setup utility." Also, when this pops up, the harddrive beeps two quick times. Now, according to my mom, this has happened more often than I knew about; however, unlike usually striking F1 to continue, the computer isn't recognizing the key input. Same thing for any key on the keyboard. I've tried accessing the BIOS, but like I said the keyboard isn't responding for some reason (keyboard was working fine before this all started...). I honestly can't do anything. My keyboard is wireless, so I've tried replacing the batteries because the batteries were just replaced last week, so I thought maybe they were bad. I've tried resetting the wireless connection. I'm running out of ideas. To also state, before this stuff happened, I did bump into the computer, so I thought maybe the harddrive was loose, and it does seem to be slightly loose, but looks to be still connected. I did try to unscrew it off its mount, but the screws were on too tight. I apologize for this long post, but I feel like giving as much detail as possible is helpful. I really need help with this; any suggestions would be appreciated. I'd rather have replacing the hard drive as a last resort if possible because of cost issues. Thanks
reset cmos sounds to me you could possibly have a corrupt bios, as the sata controller is not detecting your hard drive. to reset cmos open up your computuer case and flick out the motherboard battery using a flat head screw driver, this is the easiest way to do it. As for your keyboard not working it's because it's USB and you possibly don't have legacy usb enabled in the bios and i presume you've never entered the bios anyway, to get around this issue use a ps2 keyboard. see link: http://ramanathan.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/cmos_battery1.jpg
