Wake up
See this:

wat do?

Backup everything on that hard drive you want to keep and buy a new one.

Look at the last time the bios was updated, now imagine how much older the MoBo must be. Is this really worth putting any more money into?

Its just a hard drive, and it appears to the the secondary drive at that so its up to you.

Ironically, my current Windows install uses the secondary drive as it's main drive...

Then you should back it up. SMART is generally not the most reliable thing ever, but if it tells me my drive has an imminent failure, I'm sure as hell going to listen.

Of course I intend to back everything up, but I'm thinking of just giving up on this computer and letting it die. It has a RAM limit capped at 512mb, IDE drive connections, and only standard PCI slots. I think I'll ask my aunt about her current computer(which is only 2-3 years old) since she's planning to replace it soon. Maybe I'll just convert this old heap into a Windows 98/DOS machine and run retro games on it...

Yeah, but you'll still need a disk or two. You could also load up a lightweight Linux distro and make it a server of some sort.

Souunds like a plan to me. I would do that if I was in your situation.

The master drive still works, it's just the slave I've been using to run windows that's having this problem. I can just go back to the master. Or I can use this to pressure my parents into buying a computer from this century...

I assume that the two disks don't have identical contents though, correct?

Does it have ISA slots?

Considering that the BIOS revision is 2001, it might have one or two next to its PCI slots.

Wee, hijack.

I'm trying to upgrade my desktop computer's RAM from one 256mb stick, to two 1 gig sticks. I opened it up, and found where the 256mb stick was, pulled it out, and put in my two 1 gig sticks. When I tried to turn it on, my computer just sat there, and the light on the front started flashing like it was in sleep mode. I had also tried putting in my 256mb followed by my two 1 gigs and I got my computer to start beeping at me. I really have no idea what I'm doing, so any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, I noticed a couple of wire not connected to anything coming from the hard drive (I think...) My RAM sticks are facing the correct direction (the way the original was) and I have them seated all the way down. Also, my dad said that they might be bad sticks, so how would I test that?

Are you sure that they're properly seated? The plastic things on the sides should be completely parallel and notched into the sticks. Are they the correct timing (ie, are they too slow or too fast?). Some computers can clock down 'too fast' RAM up to a point.

The original RAM was speed: 400mhz. The new RAM are both: ...I take that back, I have no idea. The RAM was seated properly for sure, because I made certain I could get those little plastic things in the right spots.

I won't insult your intelligence so much as to ask if you made sure it was the same type, same number of notches, same number of pins.

Did you run memtest86?

Considering the machine won't boot, I tend to think that that's not an option, unless I misread something.

Wait, what is Trend ChipAwayVirus(R). Is it a virus?