When booting, American Megatrends screen comes up.

[ccs78]

We are operating a Gateway computer with XP. When we boot the computer up, a black screen pops up stating American Megatrends 3rd Master Hard Disk: S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, Backup and Replace. Press F2 to Resume. Once you press F2, it takes you to a Blue screen stating CMOS Setup Utility. There are several choices on this screen to choose from. When you try to exit it goes right back to the initial screen. Does any one know what causes this and how to fix?
Thank you!

[Rik_]

You have a failed hard drive and that's your bios telling you so! You need to replace the faulty hard drive with a new one!

[ccs78]

Thank you for the reply! Can I get past this screen to back up my documents or is it too late?

[Rik_]

It's most like too late. Professional data recover will most likely be the only way to get at your data and that will be very very expensive.
You should always have a backup of any data that is important for situations like this.

[gerbil]

ccs, disconnect the failing drive. Then when you have installed windows to your new drive reconnect the failing drive. Restart your sys; if that is successful then try to copy over any files you require/can access, and then throw out the old drive. Its life is over.

[tigerbright]

hi - an alternate solution might be to run a Ubuntu linux v10.10 os in "try it" mode , which will load onto the ram memory and boot from there.
if all is well you will be able to access the Windows volume and copy personal files to a flash drive or external drive or even burn to optical drive disk
The linux distro is a re-distributable bootable iso file - just download and burn to disk using the burning program iso option
Is freeware
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

btw - what options were offered after the F2 resume option was clicked ? if one is boot to the F8 start menu - you might be able to boot windows in safe mode which would enable saving personal files

[ccs78]

Thank you for all the responses! I was able to get past the blue screen by entering in safe mode and was able to copy all the data. Thanks again for the advice.

[Rik_]

What? That post makes no sense at all!

[winston.jacob3]

well i had the same problem and i am unable to enter via safe mode as i am getting a blue screen (of death). Changing the SATA mode to compatibility from AHCI is not helping.

Please help!