Insert bootable media error message

[Jay's_mom]

My computer will not boot when I turn it on It had a message that says Insert bootable media. I cannot go into safe mode when I push F8 the message keeps showing up. Also my computer is making this strange sound. It sounds like the arcade game galeka when your shooting (Ping, ping, ping) I'm running windows 98 and I have a Pentium 166, system memory is at 49152 KB (SD) When I opened I noticed a lot of dust as well. Please Help!!!

Jay's Mom

[geoscomp]

Your hard drive is most likely toast and will need to be replaced

[Jay's_mom]

Your hard drive is most likely toast and will need to be replaced

So I've pretty much lost everything that was there?

[geoscomp]

To determine that, you will have to do some troubleshooting..first get some canned air or a vacuum cleaner that allows you to reverse the flow so you can blos air in, and blow out as much dust as possible..make sure that the noise continues after that..If it does, you might try having someone that has another computer take the hard drive out and slave it to their machine to see if they can access it, but in my experience, when the drive starts making that noise, it is pretty much useless and everything on it is unavailable unless you want to spend quite a bit of money getting it back

[Archer]

Just recheck you do not have a floppy disk inserted when your booting too.
If you enter the bios what does it say as to the installed drives?
This site contains several wav files of failing drives so does it sound like any of these?

[Jay's_mom]

Just recheck you do not have a floppy disk inserted when your booting too.
If you enter the bios what does it say as to the installed drives?
This site contains several wav files of failing drives so does it sound like any of these?

It was the Head Stuck to platter sound. What does this mean?

[Archer]

It usually means the drive is irrecoverable unless you use a specialist firm.

[Jay's_mom]

It usually means the drive is irrecoverable unless you use a specialist firm.

I guess I'll have to take it as a loss. Can I transfer the modem to another computer?

[Archer]

If the operating system you are intending to use has a driver which supports the hardware.

[Jay's_mom]

If the operating system you are intending to use has a driver which supports the hardware.

Thanks for all of your help.