any hope here?

My Dell laptop was bought used a secondary for the one day/month I was out
of town and needed access.It' s worked fine.Last week my wife's I
reformatted my wife's desktop since it had been getting slower and locking
up easily.That did not help and since it seems as if the hard drive runs all
the time I felt it was gone.I re-enlisted the laptop for dialy service which
lasted one day and today on bootup I got

Primary hard disk drive 0 not found-strike F1 to try reboot or F2 for setup
utility

F1 repeats that message and I am not sure what to do with F2.Are both of
these computers dead....and if so is it one of life's little coincidences
or have the evil spirits taken over my house?
Thanks
Hank

My Dell laptop was bought used a secondary for the one day/month I was out
of town and needed access.It' s worked fine.Last week I
reformatted my wife's desktop since it had been getting slower and locking
up easily.That did not help and since it seems as if the hard drive runs all
the time I felt it was gone.I re-enlisted the laptop for daily service which
lasted one day and today on bootup I got

Primary hard disk drive 0 not found-strike F1 to try reboot or F2 for setup
utility

F1 repeats that message and I am not sure what to do with F2.Are both of
these computers dead....and if so is it one of life's little coincidences
or have the evil spirits taken over my house?
Thanks
Hank


--
Thanks
Hank
"hankus" <hbienert@cox.net> wrote in message
news:_ktmj.25465$hO4.9624@newsfe19.lga...
> My Dell laptop was bought used a secondary for the one day/month I was
> out of town and needed access.It' s worked fine.Last week my wife's I
> reformatted my wife's desktop since it had been getting slower and locking
> up easily.That did not help and since it seems as if the hard drive runs
> all the time I felt it was gone.I re-enlisted the laptop for dialy service
> which lasted one day and today on bootup I got
>
> Primary hard disk drive 0 not found-strike F1 to try reboot or F2 for
> setup utility
>
> F1 repeats that message and I am not sure what to do with F2.Are both of
> these computers dead....and if so is it one of life's little coincidences
> or have the evil spirits taken over my house?
> Thanks
> Hank
>

hankus wrote:
> My Dell laptop was bought used a secondary for the one day/month I was out
> of town and needed access.It' s worked fine.Last week my wife's I
> reformatted my wife's desktop since it had been getting slower and locking
> up easily.That did not help and since it seems as if the hard drive runs all
> the time I felt it was gone.I re-enlisted the laptop for dialy service which
> lasted one day and today on bootup I got
>
> Primary hard disk drive 0 not found-strike F1 to try reboot or F2 for setup
> utility
>
> F1 repeats that message and I am not sure what to do with F2.Are both of
> these computers dead....and if so is it one of life's little coincidences
> or have the evil spirits taken over my house?
> Thanks
> Hank
>
>

I you have a friend with a desktop machine, purchase a notebook drive
IDE adapter (or use a spare SATA drive connector and power plug on the
desktop) and pull your important files from the drive.

Then run chkdsk /r on the problem drive to correct content errors.
Reinstall on the notebook and see if it boots. If not, use your restore
disk set to reinstall the OS to factory condition. ...you *did* make the
restore disk set?

Do the same with your desktop on the friend's desktop.

Q