Inspiron 5000 start up problem

Question

I have an Inspiron 5000-----that was working fine at 3 a.m.  When I turned it on at 8:30 a.m. it won't get past the intial starting windows page.  It continues to try and reboot by returning to that page.  I attempted to press F8 and start it in safe mode but it won't allow me.  PLEASE tell me it's not the hard drive----I am working on my dissertation and failed to backup a considerable amount of work before stopping last night.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  I'm sure you can tell that I have very little knowledge of computer operations.      After reading forum questions--- I pressed the reset button and the computer booted up and then I received an error message that states 'The ACPI Bios is not fully compliant with the ACPI specifications...'.  I purchased the computer 3 years ago from Ebay and I haven't made any changes to it at all.    Occassionally I during a retry I would simply get a blue screen.  At other times, the screen freezes at the 'starting windows'.    Any ideas on what I can try----and how I can retrieve my dissertation material in the case of 'lost cause'.      Message Edited by barlow44 on 08-19-200601:42 PM

L2TechInArizona · Answer

Power off the system completely, then hold the Fn key on the keyboard and THEN press the power button.....let it go through the tests.....one of them is the DST (Drive Short Test) and if you get errors then.....hard drive is probably going or is bad.........if no errors, hopefully that computer has 32 bit diagnostics.....cuz then run a Custom Test on the Hard Drive (its a down and dirty test to make sure its not going bad)   If no errors..........then do a search for Bart PE, once you goto the pebuilder site, download the cd creator package AND load the Nero burning software plug-in in the image as well so that you can burn your data onto disk even tho you are running a boot cd............only do all this if your drive is shot though   IF AND ONLY IF your drive is completely dead.............put it in the freezer for 10 min then back into the system, you should have function for 10 min - 1hour to get as much as possible off of it........once it warms up and the internal platters spin off thats the end of the drive but you got your data off of a drive that was unsalvable anyways lol   Give an update on what happens  thx

barlow44 · Answer

Thank you for the suggestions---Heres where I'm at now with this problem. I tried holding the Fn key while turning on the computer and it won't take me to the diagnostic test--it continues to go through the boot-up process. I think I have really messed up somewhere--because after reading the Dell troubleshooting manual I pressed the F2 key and and went into BIOS. I changed the sequence to Floppy, Internal, and CD---now all a get is a "disk read error occurred" every time I try to reboot. I don't have a systems file disk to insert and when I go back to the BIOS to reset to default it continues to give me the same "disk read error occurred". The only thing it will allow me to do is go into the F2 setup. Any Suggestions????? I'm getting desperate And sick at the thought of lost dissertation material.

ward733 · Answer

I does sound like the hard drive has failed. You might be able to use a usb enclosure with your old drive to acess the data. Try to stay within i think 60 gb replacements. You will have to reload the software and operating system.. The usb enclosure may or maynot allow you to retrieve. Some drives have enough in them to allow acsess but not to load windows.. Also take the drive out and  hold the drive end to end and tap it on a table along all  narrow  long sides  not the flat sides. Might buy you some time sometimes on these models when the hard drives are going the read needle sticks and this might free it enough to get you where you can get your file out.. If it works than this is only temporary the drive will stop again so make sure there is a floppy around..Good luck..

barlow44 · Answer

Thanks guys for the help----I ended up taking it to a local shop for assistance. Unfortunately, it was the hard drive and apparently there was no way he could retrieve anything off the old one. He said when he hooked it up to the rescue computer it only made a grinding sound. Anyway--- I have learned a valuable lesson about backing up my documents. Fortunate for me, I had a copy of the rough draft of my dissertation saved on a floppy----I still lost a LOT of work--but I didn't lose it all. I have asked that he replace the hard drive----and he has---but since I bought the laptop off of ebay and it didn't come with any restore systems files--I have to purchace the Windows XP and other things----- So I haven't decided yet if it's worth the money. Thanks for all of the help with this problem---from the beginning you have said it was probably my hard drive---you were right!

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Inspiron 5000 start up problem

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