computer stopped responding

I had a serious crash and error message just a while ago.
I was trying to read an email and suddenly the computer
hung up and I was unable to recover. Then I got a screen
telling me to remove the most recent hardware and how to
do that. Trouble is there IS no recent hardware added!
This install is only a couple days old. I do know that
my computer (more accurately the hard drive) became
completely quiet where it had not been before.
When I restarted, I had no control over anything. Nothing
responded. Not the start button or even the event monitor.
Took a couple tries, but for now I have my computer
responsive. I checked the error messages and this is what
it says:
Details
Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 9
Source: atapi
Version: 5.2
Symbolic Name: IO_ERR_TIMEOUT
Message: The device, %1, did not respond within the
timeout period.

Explanation
The attempt to read or write data timed out.


User Action
If there is a medium in the CD-ROM drive, it might need
replacing or cleaning

...............
but there is no rom in the drive!
Please help, I don't understand and I need to know if
this is an impending hard drive crash or a windows
problem..
Thank you!
Kathy

unplug your cd-rom drive and see if the problem goes away. if yes then thats
your problem if no it could be the ide controler, i.e. motherboard...

"Kathy" <threedoves DeleteThis @wyan.org> wrote in message
news:0cec01c3aac3$2f09c560$a301280a@phx.gbl...
> I had a serious crash and error message just a while ago.
> I was trying to read an email and suddenly the computer
> hung up and I was unable to recover. Then I got a screen
> telling me to remove the most recent hardware and how to
> do that. Trouble is there IS no recent hardware added!
> This install is only a couple days old. I do know that
> my computer (more accurately the hard drive) became
> completely quiet where it had not been before.
> When I restarted, I had no control over anything. Nothing
> responded. Not the start button or even the event monitor.
> Took a couple tries, but for now I have my computer
> responsive. I checked the error messages and this is what
> it says:
> Details
> Product: Windows Operating System
> ID: 9
> Source: atapi
> Version: 5.2
> Symbolic Name: IO_ERR_TIMEOUT
> Message: The device, %1, did not respond within the
> timeout period.
>
> Explanation
> The attempt to read or write data timed out.
>
>
> User Action
> If there is a medium in the CD-ROM drive, it might need
> replacing or cleaning
>
> ..............
> but there is no rom in the drive!
> Please help, I don't understand and I need to know if
> this is an impending hard drive crash or a windows
> problem..
> Thank you!
> Kathy