diskette drive 0 seek failure

That error message is for an internal floppy drive, not for your hard drive. If you have an internal floppy drive, did you leave a non-bootable disk in the drive? If not, it's possible the floppy drive has failed.

If you don't have an internal floppy drive, run BIOS Setup 

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

(F2 before Windows starts to load) and look for:

Change the setting to: None. Save the change and exit setup.  Note that the factory default is for an internal drive, so if you reset BIOS to factory defaults, you turned the floppy drive controller on. If you didn't reset BIOS, it's possible the battery on the motherboard is weak and isn't holding the settings so they reverted to factory defaults. In that case, you should replace the motherboard battery. It's a 3-volt CR-2032 lithium ion battery, about $2 at places like Walmarts, etc.

Note: If you do have an internal floppy drive that failed, you can turn off the controller in BIOS until you have a chance to replace it which will stop the error message.

Ron

I think my hdd had its last breath.  My Inspiron 530 is almost 2 years old and out of warranty.  I thought hard drive were under 5 year warranties.  At this point I'm clueless.  What are my options to getting it fixed?

3taylorsdad 

All the OEM hard drives that are factory installed in Dell's computers, have a Dell warranty, not a manufacturer's warranty, that's the same as the warranty supplied with the computer.

eg. If the PC has a one year Dell warranty, then the hard drive has the same one year.

Bev.