ok one for all the IT Nerds out there. I turned on my computer tonight, hadnt had any known problems with it as yet, and after the first boot up screen it goes to the motherboard logo screen usually for about a second then would go to windows, tonight thou it stays on the motherboard screen for aaages then after a minute or so goes to a black screen sayin this

"reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key"

what the hell does this mean and what the hell do i do lol? never had nay probs before this tonight.

have you connected a new HDD?
is it IDE or SATA?

no i havent connected a new idd, i havent touched naything with the comp its all the same.

im pretty sure its IDE coz that rings a bell.

If you can, get into the BIOS setup and find the section to see what devices are connected to your IDE cables. Usually says Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master, Secondary Slave....

Check to see if your hard disk still exist on that list. If its disappeared, it's either your hard disk is dead (power outage or spike), the IDE cable is damaged somehow (like getting caught in one of the many fans and cut some wires), or the IDE connector on the motherboard is damaged (could be from power spike because of freak weathers from last couple of days)

It's possible your hard drive has failed mate.

ok thanks for the input guys, it acutally happened this morning as well, but after a third rebuilt i got in, i turned the computer off. Turned it back on this arvo and it does it every time. is my best bet to just drop it off in a cpu shop?

ill go into the bios setup and have a look to see if its all there.

ok went in there and they all say not detected expect Secondary Master which looks like its detecting my dvd-rom.

so i guess its wot u sed hard rive is dead or a cable is gone. i just had a new motherboard put in like 2 months ago hope its just a cable!!! im assuming if its a dead hard drive i will loose everything on there thou? i have alot of stuff on there i cannot afford to lose

Yup, it's best to take it to a computer shop to get it checked out. Alternatively, if you have mates with spare parts lying around, swap in either the hard disk or IDE cable and see if the problem still there or not. If symptoms persist please contact your nearest computer technician....

yeah looks like itll be going there tomoz

Still could be one of those 3 problems I describe earlier on. One way to test the hard disk is to get hold of a HDD external USB caddy, put the har ddisk inside and see if it can be detected on another computer. if it still can't....then it's really dead. And try holding the case on different angles, I had a faulty hard disk once that couldn't be detected, unless I hold it on a certain angle.