My computer, though appearing to have shut down, did not turn off - the monitor went onto standby but the harddrive was still running, and the red light that shows it's reading remained on at all times. I turned the harddrive off from the back, as it was the only way to actually power-off the machine. My friend came to fix it, opened up the computer, and reset the BIOS (he is a computer engineer and knows what he is doing - I had no idea what he was doing), this caused my computer to boot up properly, he used the mouse to see if there was any log of the problem it had but there was none.
I did not use my computer until a couple of hours after he left. I plugged in my flash-drive/"USB stick" to print off a file. I realized that the mouse was not working, and so checked the plug at the back; it had not been unplugged and was properly plugged in. Then I checked the keyboard, and it was not working either, though properly plugged in at the back of the harddrive. I tried to do a "hard" power-off, by holding down on the power button for 15 seconds, this did not work. I pushed the restart button, and the harddrive appeared to restart, but, like in the first instance, nothing booted up to the monitor and it went on standby. Now my harddrive, as before, is on, with the red light constantly on. It will not turn off, and I can get nothing on the monitor.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN TWICE? WHAT HAVE I DONE WRONG? Any help/tips would be much appreciated. I know nothing about computer hardware.
My computer is about 5 years old. It has an Asus motherboard. It was made by someone for me (ie it's not store-bought). It has a 60G harddrive. It has Windows XP. I'm sorry but I don't know anything more about it.
Thanks again.
