Well that doesn't sound good at all. Maybe try this, when you reboot, start tapping the F8 key when the boot screen first appears, then select safe mode. If you can start in safe mode, go to My Computer/r-click on the C: drive and select Properties from the menu, then select the tools tab, then clcik the check now button under Error-Checking. Provided you have been able to get that far, after you check for errors, then do a defrag of your hard drive while still in safe mode.

It wont let me F8 at all.....it just keeps saying primary and secondary slave is none!

Well that sucks. My guess would be that your hard drive may have failed completely, and needs to be replaced. Did you open your computer up, and do anything inside? I ask, because I was just wondering if you may have loosened anything inside. You could try checking all your connections, and maybe changing the ribbon cable on the hard drive.

If you replace the hard drive, keep your old hard drive, and maybe you can stick it in a plastic bag and then put it in the freezer for about an hour, sometimes you can get the hard drive to work long enough to get data off it.

PLEASE NOTE: If you do work inside your computer, be sure to touch the metal case before touching anything, this will discharge any static that your body holds.

does it detect you hard drive at all? anywhere? as a master or a slave? if not, your problem is there... (either the drive is totaly dead, lose wire, or not connected, or your ide controller is fried).

try going into your bios (try F1, del) and using auto detect for the drive... does something pop up?

i have the same problem, and have had it for some months now. I have found a poor solution to get into my computer again. i just have to w8 for up to an hour, where the computer stays at the "please insert bootdisk..." screen and then reboot. then windows xp loads normally. but have been unable to fix the problem. will try some of the solutions sugested here.

-First post here btw ^^

I guess its some problem with the hard drive or its settings... well if u want to check if ur drive is proper or not... jus take it and put the drive into some another comp in slave mode and check.....

@BinaryMayhem
I pressed F1 setup and it took me to the menu, but on 1st Drive it says: [None]. 2nd Drive : [HL-DT-STDVDRW] 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Drive all say [None] as well. What can I do?

How old is your computer? It look like the hard disk has reach end of life. But if you want to try. Than go to setup page and select auto detect hard disk. Than open up the computer and test with another hard disk to check whether the hard disk controller still works. Finally put the suspected fail hard disk on to another computer to check the hard disk.