RyanK23

I purchased a refurbished Gateway M520 10 months ago(WARRANTY EXPIRED 2 months ago)...I tried to back up some files on my secondary <D:> drive using Nero and ended up losing half the space on that drive...when I tried undoing it I lost the entire drive altogether (not in explorer, DOS, or BIOS). Now all I have is a Primary drive <C:> which 2 months ago started giving me "Primary Drive Status BAD...backup and replace....Push F1 to continue" I push F1 and half the time it continues to Windows and the other half of the time it stays frozen there. So with my replacable drive <D:> non-existent to my machine and my integrated primary drive bad <C:>, i figured I'd try to format the primary and use the recovery disc. That's when I discovered my CDR/DVD combo stopped reading CDs(I posted this issue in the other section)! It shows the drive in explorer but with no icon or autoplay and is constantly empty no matter what CD I put in; unless it's a DVD then it works fine (doesn't do me any good trying to reinstall everything). So with a BAD primary drive which is integrated (and i believe cannot be replaced without replacing the motherboard), an unrecognizable secondary drive, and a cd/dvd combo that won't read CDs I feel like I am running out of options. The only two things I can think of are buying an external CD-ROM and trying to format and reinstall everything on the primary drive (which may not fix it's "BAD" status) or buying another <D:> drive and HOPING it works even though the one that is in now isn't being recognized... Or should I just throw the thing away after JUST paying it off and count it as a $1600 loss? Sorry this was so long but any suggestions would be MUCH appreciated!!