Hi I am a newbie and having a problem with my computer.I have an t1600 emachine with 1600+ amd athlon xp processorand 40 GB hard drive and 256 DDR.When I start it(before loading of windows)it displays following messages: Verifying DMI Pool Data boot from cd: Press any key to boot from cd -After that all it displays is a cursor.It has some other changes Previously SECONDARY SLAVE DISK : NONE Now it displays an orange mark stating 1/2 after secondary slave disk Under PCI Device listing i see 1-an green mark for ide controller stating 'i' as bus # 2-an green mark for simple comm. beween device class & IRQ stating 'n' As I am not very much computerliterate i fail to understand what all this means.Will someone be kind enough to explain to me the situation so that i can get my computer working if possible .If more info is needed you can let me know.

look at this site http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/tips/index.htm

It sounds like one of several things. 1) For some reason your hard drive has completely died, and it is no longer being detected. 2?Maybe your bios has reset and defaulted to cdrom boot (unlikely). Go into the bios, and check in there if your primary hard drive is being detected anymore. That is the first step. Do that, then come back to us.

Thanks for replying my Q and as you advised i checked the advanced bios screen of my computer.It runs as Antivirus Protection Disabled first boot device cdrom second boot device floppy third boot device HDD-0 boot other device enabled boot up num-lock status on security option setup APIC mode enabled hdd S.M.A.R.T capability disabled video and S3 beeper disabled This is all the advanced bios info.Thanks