Hard Drive/OS problem

[Krack3d]

Alright this is a pretty odd thing I have never seen anything like it before so I figured rather then try to fix it myself I should enlist the help of the experts. My friend has a Dell Inspiron 2500 laptop with a P3 700 Mhz processor. The OS is Windows ME 2000 and it has 128 megs of RAM. The prblem is when she boots up it says Operating System not found and will not boot any further. We first tried to install a new OS and it wasn't working so we went into the BIOS and as it turns out its not detecting the HDD anymore. We have been on the phone with Dell for upwards of half an hour with no avail. Any suggestions on how we can get it to detect the HDD and boot? Thanks in Advance!

[bchur83]

The HD may be dead. Usually if the BIOS doesnt detect it, and nothing has changed, the HD is probably dead. Can you hear the HD spin up?

[Krack3d]

I do not hear spinning. Is that the only possibility? I hate to be the bearer of bad news. :(

That's very odd that it would be working up until that point and just die on her.

[Dukeman]

Try unplugging the data cable when the system is powered off then power the system on to see if the drive spins. A bad cable or ATA bus can cause the drive to not come ready and sometimes not even spin.