? appears when i power on

thanks i found that page, and it hasn't helped much yet.

the question mark flashing and a plain grey screen alter everytime i force shutdown.

i have a cursor for my mouse now, so i hope that's good.

i'll have to find my installation disk, and troubleshoot later.

is there a possibility that my info is lost if my disk is corrupted?

i had a fall in nov/dec...my screen is cracked...about a 1/4 blacked out...i haven't had a chance to do anything with it yet. it's been working fine. i was on it last night, and then this morning it would not start up.

how do i reseat the ram and hdd?

by the way, thanks for your help!

i gotta get to work, but i'm gonna try your suggestions later.