Primary hard disk drive 0 not found

[Aqualily6]

HELP PLEASE

My roommate's laptop stated:

Primary hard disk drive 0 not found
No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility

This problem was so immediate, we don't know what happened.
It sounds as if the hard drive may be crashing but I have a rare circumstance.

One of my roommates is an ex-military intelligence officer. He is divorced, alone, and a severe alchoholic. We told him today that if he doesn't get better (he can't control himself when he's drunk) that he will have 30 days to get better or he'll have to move back in with his parents. When he gets mad he takes it out on the other people in the house, like a drunk form of revenge.

What I am wondering is can a person with that knowledge crash someone's computer? Can a person totally distroy it because he had the opportunity, knowledge, and motive to do so? Or did it just crash because it's a crappy Dell? Please let me know if it is possible either way.

Please and thank you,
Samantha

[tbone2sk]

It is easy to open up a laptop and remove the hard drive, he might have done that.

[Aqualily6]

I don't think he owns a small screw driver and the time in which he had to mess up the computer was only a couple minutes. Is there any existing hacks or codes that someone like that could know that would just break the machine? If not, then I'll be sure. My roommates are both vets. The army ranger vet just asked the other roommate if he was in his room and he said "Not that I recall" because he's pretty out of it. He didn't give a direct answer either. But my roommate is doing online courses and can't lose certain information. I hope he can have it fixed by phone. If there's any other information that someone has it would be great thanks.

[Bob_180_Bob]

Hi friend,
Please, we can do without all the fact on your room mate and a lot more on your PC.
What happens when you press F2, is the hard drive listed?
Sometimes the machine may not find the hard drive but will every other time, have you tried again?
Please post back with more info on your PC and OS. (No more on your room mate)
For that try "Dear Dorothy" dot com.......

[jte999fla]

Probably just a crappy drive. My Dell 1525s went just after the 1yr warranty period. No noise, errors, bluescreens, or lockups. Went to turn it on and I got the exact same message as you described. F2 doesn't list the drive. Tested the drive on another machine, same thing. Bought a new drive that comes with a 5yr warranty online for $50.

[Chaky]

It is possible by BIOS settings.
I could render any PC unbootable within a minute just by making BIOS manually look for some bogus HD.

What your roommate should do is access BIOS and revert all settings to defaults.