Black screen on startup, crashed HDD?

Try attaching the drive to another system (mount it in an external case or connect it to a desktop).  If it's then recognized, you might give Easy Recovery (Ontrack) a try.  If it's not, it's beyond home recovery and you'll need a data recovery service.

I have just experienced the same black screen with my XPS.  At 1 year I had a hard drive failure.  At 3 years 10 months another hard drive failure.

That was in April and now another.  I have no doubt Dell sent me a reman drive since my warranty was almost over so now I am on my own.

Best of luck to you.

Hi Doc307,

Hard drives fail. That's why we so strongly recommend keeping regular backups. Unfortunately, the lesson is usually learned too late.

I understand hard drives fail.  Dell sent me a "new" drive in April that has already failed.  I did not lose any vital information.  The thing that iritates me is I pulled the drive out and noticed the "new" drive they sent me in April is almost 3 years old.  Between that and what I had to go through to get that drive my next one will not be a dell.

This is standard practice for OEMs. There is no greater likelihood of a refurbished drive failing than a new drive. They're tested the same way.

Sort of like buying a car. Regardless of its reliability, they still put a spare tire in the trunk!

Osprey, I'm just giving you a hard time here but your argument is losing validity since GM no longer includes

a spare tire in many of their vehicles now. :)

The CD/DVD drive needs to be in the boot list (or use F12 to select it manually).  When you made the CD/DVDs - did you write just the ISO file to the disc?  That won't work - you must burn the image to the disc - NOT the ISO file itself.

Thanks for the quick response. I do not have a Utilities Disc. Tried making a system recovery disc and tried making a "Dell Systems Service and Diagnostics Tools ISO" disc. In both cases upon trying to start the failed laptop from the CD ROM, I get:

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable

PXE-M0F:Exiting PXE ROM

No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2...

Tried an old XP restore disc and it worked. Why is it not recognizing my DVDs? I closed the session and ejected properly. There is nothing else on these discs besides iso images. They are not protected, blocked, etc.

I did not burn the iso correctly. Never done it before. Burned correctly now and still won't read disc/image.

If you're saying the system will read a pressed (official) XP CD but not a DVD, it sounds like the DVD laser is bad.

Try putting the drive in to a ziplock bag in the freezer for 30 minutes - sometimes that will get the drive readable.

No I burned it wrong the first time. Used an iso image burner the second time, but still no luck in the  <ADMIN NOTE: Profanity removed as per TOU> out laptop. All files burned correctly after opening on PC. Tried hooking the dead HDD to my PC. Got it recognized 1 out of 3 times in the Boot Menu. Have to tap on it to get it spinning, but won't recognize it once windows boots up. Can tell its spinning now. Makes noise when I squeeze it. Might be mechanical failure. Not giving up yet. Thanks.

Freezing now. Boot up without fried HD plugged in is MUCH faster. Mean anything? If it is not recognizing it at all, then why would it take so long for my main hard drive to get going with it plugged in and be 10 times faster without it plugged in?

Windows will keep trying multiple times to read the drive - it gives up after a while - sometimes a long while.