I think i blew up my parent's computer....(never mind! Solved!)

ahava

It's an older machine, still running Windows 2000, maybe 2003.

I updated Adobe Acrobat 8 with new security install things, and it told me to reboot the computer. I did. and upon rebooting it gets to a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left hand corner, and then nothing.

it was also making some not so happy noises like it was trying to take off.


I manually shut the computer down, and then tried to start it up again, same thing. It is now manually turned off (holding the power button down) and 'resting' as my father puts it.

I know the machine is slow to boot, maybe I should just give it time, it usually will take about 10-15 minutes to boot up, but the metallic whirring was a new thing....

Muriden

There are generally two parts that will make that kind of noise. Either a fan or the hard drive. If it's a random fan in the case this is not always a big deal. If it's the fan over the CPU this could possibly be a big deal if the computer runs often and at high temps. If it's the hard drive that's about the worst thing that it could be. Noise coming from an HDD usually means the arm that writes data is actually touching the platter and causing physical damage. If this is the case you need to salvage all the data immediately and replace the drive before it goes out entirely.

ahava

Nope.

it seems to be that I was overreacting to the fact that the computer is older than my high school diploma (not really but almost).


It really did take it like 10 minutes to boot up.


But I am going to have to get back there and clean out the fans. And then go from there.


Thanks for the fast response! I just need to be more patient with old technology I guess.