OK, here is the situation... I took apart my PC to try and find out why my hard drive was making strange noises. So, I unplugged every cable in there just in case one of them were lose or something. Anyway, when I plugged everything back in the exact way that they were previously, I started up my computer and an error came up while it was detecting the devices. Here is what it came up upon booting... Hardware Monitor found an error. Enter Power setup menu for more details. Press F1 to continue, F2 to enter SETUP 08/17/2000-i810-MEW-AV My computer is running fine except the fact that the hard drive still makes those grinding noises at startup and at shutdown and sometimes during normal use. But, everytime I boot up now, that same error appears. Is there anyway I can find out what that error is reffering to? By the way, I did enter setup and I set the BIOS settings to the defaults.

not enough pc info. start saving for a new hdd.

Pentium 3, 256 MB's RAM, Seagate 20 gig H/D Yamaha CD burner. I just formated and reinstalled Windows, same thing, error keeps coming up at startup. I checked the drive with Seagates diognostic utilities and the drive is as good as new. I don't know if the problem has to do with when I unplugged everything and plugged them back in but I doubt it. The only thing I upgraded in this was the RAM and I made sure that it was installed correctly. Maybe I should start saving for something other than the hard disk drive?

That is a CMOS or BIOS error. You need to enter setup when your computer first boots up and take a look at the power options. Is it possible that when you put everything back together you could have moved a voltage switch? Have a look at the question from Irene on this page for more information: Hardware Monitor found an error, enter Power Management Setup for details.

maybe flashing the BIOS would help... i was getting a similar error message on my windows 98 computer ...on mine it was something about the keyboard (cant remember exact message anymore... it was two years ago)... after flashed BIOS no more messages... dont worry about the hard drive noises in windows ME.... ME is trashing hard drive much more then 98... i thought that i got an internal coffeegrinder instead of internal hard drive when i turned my compuer first time on....hehehe.... increasing RAM to 192meg and setting swapping file min/max to 480meg and other tweeks got rid of it regards Miro

Bad memory can producce various problems.Check it out -just in case-(remove the new ram to see)