You should be able to get to safe mode by tapping the F8 key when you see the Dell splash screen

it is sometimes a bit tricky.. but if you cannot enter safe mode then it would most likely appear the harddrive is shot.

Dave,

THANKS for the very prompt response.

Unfortunately tapping the F8 key does not take me to the screen where I can select SAFE Mode.

All I get is the blinking cursor after seeing the DELL splash screen (except when I press the F2 and or F12 function keys).

Tom

You could try first at the F12 prompt hit enter and run the Dell diagnostics. You could also try running a widows repair with your windows disk. Pop in the disk and boot from it. select the option to repair

That is what I was afraid you would tell me.

Probably a dumb question (I'm not very technical) is there any way to recover the files on the harddrive?

Also, is there any way to get to a command prompt to be able to run dskck?

if nothing seem to help you can also try after you have a running sytem of plugging the drive in as a secondary drive and you will be able to access the contents unless there is some real physical disk damage.

When I run 5. IDE Drive Diagnostics (at the F12 Boot Device Menu) I get:

IDE Drive Diagnostics running, please wait...

Primary IDE

     Drive 0:  MAXTOR STM3160815A - Pass

    Drive 1:  No IDE device

Secondary IDE

    Drive 0:  GCR-8481B - Diagnostics not supported

    Drive 1:  HL-DT-ST  GCE-8400B - Diagnostics not supported

Test complete, Press to reboot

the reboot results in the blinking cursor problem.

I have tried to boot from my Windows XP CD by changing the boot device sequence to try the CD drive first with the same results.

I'm assuming that it tries to boot using that CD however, I'm not sure if that CD can be used to boot my desktop.

Try using the boot option in the F12 menu. Select the option to boot from the onboard CDROM(doenst matter if the drive is a DVD drive or not).  The windows disk is bootable.

Try resetting BIOS to factory defaults by removing the motherboard battery, pressing/holding power button for ~30 sec and then reinstalling the battery (right-side-up!).

And if the motherboard battery is more than ~2-3 years old, this might be the time to replace it.

Always power off, unplug and press/hold power button for ~15 sec before doing anything inside the case.

that might be a possibality but more  than likely the boot sector of the harddrive is damaged or corrupt. this is what would case the system to not see it. once the bios is done posting it goes out and looks for the boot info on the drives by the order that is set in the bios. So if the boot sector is damaged or corrupted then it will not find it and will cause the blinking cursor.

that is why I was trying to see if you could get the windows disk to boot so you could attempt a repair which would try to repair the boot sector.

Since you have the data if you back it all up you could try reformatting the drive put it back into the other computer and try to reinstall windows.

again if you can get to F12 option screen you should be able to select the option to boot  from the onboard CDROM which should load your windows disk.

I deinstalled the harddrive from my DELL desktop and plugged it in as a SLAVE on my Gateway desktop.

The Gateway found the new harddrive and it shows up as the Local Disk (F:).

The files seem to be OK.

So could the DELL BIOS be corrupted?

I had tried to use my Windows XP CD to boot the DELL but was never successful.

Fortunately I already had a backup of my files. I use a Buffalo external harddrive running Memeo backups software which maintains "real time" data updates as changes are being made to the c: drive files.

So if I understand what you have said and since I can now access the harddrive via another desktop, I should be able to reformat it then move it back to my DELL desktop and reinstall Windows XP.

But before I do, is there a way I could try to "repair" the harddrive while it is installed in the Gateway?

As I have previously said, I'm not very technical and don't have a clue how to "repair" the harddrive.

wouldnt hurt to try that.  Just follow the same procedure. to be on the safe side i would swap the drives around in the gateway nad leave that internal harddrive disconnected when you try so the only harddrive it will see is the one from the Dell..

OK I reformatted the DELL harddrive using the Gateway desktop.

After removing the DELL harddrive from the Gateway desktop, I successfully booted the Gateway to be sure it was still OK.

I then reinstalled the harddrive into the DELL desktop with the WinXP CD in the CD drive.

I modified the Boot Sequence to DISABLE the harddrive to try to force a boot from the WinXP CD.

That didn't work.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong when trying to boot from the WinXP CD.

Any suggestions for what to do next????