Yesterday my computer was working fine, but today when I started it up, Windows XP froze as the bar was moving across the screen. I restarted, and the machine took it's sweet time looking for IDE. Eventually it found it, but then just before the WinXP logo normally came up, the machine restarted itself, starting the RAM verification and IDE search again. -_- After a few more attempts, it finally came up with, essentially, the screen asking for a system disk to be inserted.

Fortunately I have most of my important stuff backed up (main thing I'm missing is music), and if indeed I have lost my disk for good, I'm still feeling kinda "zen-like" about it. Maybe it's a "morning after" thing, where it doesn't really strike you until the next day. Or maybe I've been mentally preparing myself for this moment for months now. Meh. :P

Could be a physical problem, could be that your partition data has been corrupted. From your description it sounds more like the former, but even then, the damage may be limited.

There are tools which can help you recover data from a defect drive, in case this should be necessary. "Recuva" is a good free option, ad might be worth a shot in your situation. EASEUS Data Recovery is even better, but costs (a lot) of money, more than the recovery of a few music files will be worth for you.

Also, obviously, check that all cables are connected, and try to plug the drive into a different connector on the mainboard (since it's also possible that it's a mainboard defect, though that again is pretty unlikely).

"Looking for IDE...?" It looks to me that it was an old IDE HDD.

Anyway, and just to make sure, can you remove that HDD and use it in another computer as a secondary master or slave, to backup what you're missing, and to test the drive with some tools?

I recommend Ultimate Boot CD, it has a collection of updated software for analysis and repair (among other things) from different manufacturers for different kind of hardware. Recuva is used for recovering deleted files and folders, and not from damaged drives.

Boot a Linux LiveCD (like Mint) and see if you can still read the drive.

The "reboot" behaviour could be Windows blue-screening, which Microsoft in their negative infinite wisdom decided should default to "reboot on bluescreen so you don't see the error lawl".

I wouldn't write it off, certainly not the content at least.

There are other things which can cause these symptoms - such as the battery on the motherboard dying. Other possibilities include fried RAM and a busted IDE controller - maybe even as simple as the IDE cable working loose

If possible - and you are sure the machine way clean of virii & such - try plugging the hard dive into another machine as a second drive. There is a fair chance that you will be able to access it.

It can also be used to recover corrupted partitions, and is useful for certain physical defects (e.g. when the sector that contains the filetable has gone physically bad, while the rest of the drive is mostly intact), but you're right, it's definitely limited in what it can do for physically defect drives. I should have made that more clear.

I second your recommendation of "Ultimate Boot CD", it's a very nifty collection of tools in a very convenient package.

It's possible, but since most MBs these days default to IDE compatibility mode for SATA ports, that's not really a safe assumption...

Anyway, check the cables first, check to see if it's visible to your BIOS and run CHKDSK on it if you can (from a boot disc, from the sounds of it). It does sound like the disk is dying if it's not already dead, so if you can get it up and running again, backup anything you might still want immediately.

Thanks all. I actually got a housemate who understands this stuff to look at it, and it does seem like things aren't looking too good. :( But I should be getting one off Newegg pretty soon, and he'll help me install it (hopefully I can find my XP CD, ugh).

Indeed, and you can even run SATA devices connected to the ATA slot, if you have an appropriate adapter. Just make sure to only use one disk per connector otherwise you're not getting the benefits of SATA.