Windows 98 computer won't boot from hard drive

[blueridgetech]

Please help.
The prob started 6 months ago and I just shelved the computer to work on later, pulled it out again this week and it worked fine for a couple of days. Now it's back.

My computer will not boot from it's hard drive, searches for bootable drive and can't find one except for A:, and I never made a rescue disk. The BIOS setup progarm can't find the hard drive. Drive spins up fine, cables in the case seem to be seated firmly, sounds from the computer are normal. I have a cd-rom drive and a cdrw drive the cd-rom is fine but the cdrw does not have any power at this point in the boot process. And now on top of all this, my moniter has just quit coming on.

I don't have to have any of the data on the drive, but I want to have the computer working.

I NEED advice, I am stumped.

 

[ManyVoicesOfMe]

In order for me to help you, you have to help me out and tell me some information about your computer.
How old is it?
What hardware devices are in it....etc...

BTW it sounds like the harddrive is going bad. Just cus it's spinning, doesn't mean it's working correctly. but since I have little info on your computer that was all i can come up with...

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Have you tried another HD in it?

 

[patio]

Try dis-connecting all other drives and re-boot .See if the BIOS picks it up .
If not try the secondary IDE channel.
You can also check how the BIOS is set up to detect HD's auto/manual...
More info.

patio.

 

[blueridgetech]

Computer had a total rebuild + - 2 years ago. Hardware as best I can come up with it.

Processer--AMD 500mh?
Sound Card--Sound Blaster Live Value
Video card--ATI All-In-Wonder 128
CD-ROM drive
CD-RW drive--Philips CDRW 800 series
Tape drive--Seagate TapeStor 20GB
Firewire--Digital Research card
Modem--SMC ADSL Ethernet card
Monitor--Toshiba Autoscan

Thank you in advance for your help