Windows Vista Gateway Laptop - Operating System not found

I've had the worst luck with computers - and water the last few days. My fiancee owns a gateway laptop with Windows Vista installed on it. Last night we gave our daughter an icecube in her mesh teething toy before she went bed and we subsequently forgot about it. In the morning we awoke to see that her laptop was off and upon starting it up, we'd get a black screen with what looks like startup information and the last line "Operating System Not Found. "

Nothing else happens on the laptop, it won't progress past this screen and it doesn't give any command prompts to progress, enter safe mode, etc. I searched this and other forums for a similar problem and found that "if" and it's a software issue, then I should be able to enter safe mode with command prompt and have it check disk. I followed instructions, but when I boot it up, I cannot access safe mode no matter how many times I hit the F8 key or restart the PC. I'm only able to enter the BIOS menu and nothing else.

On top of all of that I decided to do a fresh Vista install to see where that would take me, and upon selecting a partition, the program tells me that there is no hard drive on the machine. I'm prepared to hear that the hard drive is damaged, but in the small possibility that I'm missing something, I'd like to hear what the community has to say. Also, pending the possible outcome of the problem, what are the possibilities that ANY data can be recovered from the hard drive in the event that it's damaged? We've got lots of photos of our daughter on there that we hope can be ressurected.

And also to give you an idea of the amount of water I'm talking about, it's only a ice cube's worth, and it was under the machine. On top of that, the laptop is sitting on a table on the rubber rests installed on it, giving it clearance above the table. I'd like to think that in some way it's a software issue, and that small amount of water can't damage the hardway in that way, but then again, it is a Gateway...

Thanks in advance for your help, you guys are great at what you do.

 

I usually don't turn on computers that I suspect of ANY water damage for at least 24 hours. For something small like yours, I would have let the computer sit for 24-48 hours without powering it on.

I still probably would. And after that waiting period, I'd try again to power it up. If that still met with failure, attempting to re-seat the hard drive couldn't hurt... Assuming you've given the machine a long enough period to dry.

 

That sounds like a good first step to take, I'll store it away until Monday and try reseating it then reporting back, thank you.

 

Well I have an Acer which is gateway is made by.. and I got operating system not found also... I re installed windows, and then again it was working then the next day it wasn't. it turned out to be a HDD failure, it was faulty. So they gave me a brand new one. My Computers HDD kept wiping itself...

If its a new computer, take it back ASAP!

 

I still haven't tried to reseat the hard drive, I've been very busy at home and just recently got my PC back online thanks to the helpful people at this place. My laptop is still covered under Best Buy's protection plan so I will that next. I was really hoping that it wouldn't resort to that, but sometimes that's the best plan of action.