My old 486 can't start and get me this message after making for a while some worrying noises as if there were pellets rattling in my computer. Booting from floppy allow me starting dos but afterwards I have to remain in a: c: is now an "Invalid drive specification". I hope I am not to throw my pc, with some of your good advices.. Good night (in Italy) Giacomo

Strange noises from the hard drive often mean hard drive failure. If you cannot get the CMOS to recognize the drive, then likely the hard drive is bad. You might check the cables or try a hard drive diagnostic program, but the noises would indicate mechanical failure. You won't have to throw away your PC, but you will probably need to replace the drive - newer (large) drives will probably not be recognized properly on a 486 - you'd need to find an older one. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

might be a battery failure and a hd failure at same time. Try doing the setup prog and get someone to look at your laptop Ratboy