Comp will not boot up

[Arkan]

Not sure if this is in the proper section.

Anyway, older system:

Pentium 4
1028 RAM
WD 40gig H/D
GeForce 6600GT
Win XP

Was online the other night and the comp froze up. I was unable to reboot so I had to do a hard shut down. Since then, the comp will not boot up. I can get to the BIOS screen, but nothing after that. Just a dark blank screen with a blinking line on the left side of the screen.

Do you think the H/D took a dump? I had some files on there that I would love to have.

What should I do ?

 

[dustNbone]

Try booting from a bootable CD/DVD, ideally a Linux Live CD. That will rule out your hard drive at least. If it can't boot removable media, then it's likely something else.

 

[Paragon]

Since the drive is probably the oldest thing on that system, it may be that. I have had drives either get noisy when they die or slow to a crawl. Does the Drive activity light light up when you are at the blank screen? What happens if you unhook the drive and boot? Should yell at you for no boot drive.
I had a P4 system take a dive last month.. motherboard decided to take a dump while playing music.