Hard Drive problems - now XP isn't working

[Greg]

Hi. Recently, I was surfing the internet when my computer
randomly restarted. When it turned back on, it displayed
a message saying the hard drive had been changed, and to
check setup. I did this, and was unhappy to find that the
hard drive was no longer detected by the BIOS. I opened
the case and checked all the connections, and everything
seemed to be in order. Now when I try to boot, it gets as
far as the improper shutdown disk scan. Once this
completes and the drive data is displayed, a screen comes
up with a navy blue screen full of errors for less than a
second before the computer restarts. It is now caught in
an infinite loop, restarting and scanning over and over.
A friend of mine suggested that perhaps the file format
had been changed, but ScanDisk displays it as FAT32, the
same as I've always had it. I'm really stumped. Does it
look like my hard drive is lost? I've backed up recently,
but there is one particularly important file I'd rather
not have to remake, so reformatting or altogether
replacing the HDD would be an absolute last resort.

 

[Tom Swift]

Computer Restarts Unexpectedly When You Browse the Internet
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316416&Product=winxp

Tom Swift