i have a computer sent to me from one of our employees in alaska. she claims that they had a power surge and/or outage and after that she wasn't able to "make it work". i checked it out and it looks like the hard drive isn't being detected. i tried autodetecting (didn't work) and i tried booting from a system disk and then fdisk (which got an error "no fixed disks available"). the system disk transferred all of the sytem files to c: drive and can get a dir of c: but can't format or partition the drive. do i need to replace the hard disk?

Nuffa dummy! Nuffa imitation administrator! Check the rest of the system before yar buy anything. FRU is the way! - That's field replacable units HAHAHAHAHA I'm back yar rectums!

Its confusing you said that it is not detecting hard drive, if it can't how can you see the dir of c: doesn't make sense to me Azeem

Sonya, Place a good known HD, with Windows on it, in as master and make the current drive a slave. Use Windows to pull of all the important data from the slave (assuming you can access it through Windows. Remove the slave and sent the unit back to the employee to get her back up and running. Next contact the HD's manufacturer and see how much they would charge for a low level format. If it is cost effective have it done. Otherwise buy a replacement drive to have as a backup. John