Cannot find hard drive, PLEASE HELP!!!

every time i start up my computer, it goes fine, takes a little less than a minute, and everythings fine, then i get to the login section and it says "There is no disk in the drive, please insert a disk into drive /Device/Harddisk1/DR3." Then it takes a awhile to get to the desktop, then everything takes forever to do. Im pretty sure that its the hard drive, and it crashed, but i dont know. and yes it is in there and all connected. i have an emachines t6524. please tell me how i can fix it...

 

How did your HDD crashed?

 

First : backup information you might want.

When you get the machine up and running run the OS 'Error-Checking' (Microsoft menu: Right click on 'c:' drive in My Computer, Properties, Tools tab, Check Now button in 'Error-checking' section, check both boxes and click Start. It may state that it can not run until you reboot so do that and take a nap.

When it is done the drive should be better. If not then I would back up information because it sounds like it is going bad.