Inspiron 7500 - multiple hard drive problems

Following a disastrous installation/update of Symantec's SystemWorks 2005 on my wife's Dell Inspiron 7500  laptop, I'm having multiple problems.  The symptoms include:

1.  The installation completed successfully, but I encountered problems when I tried to update the software using LiveUpDate.  I used Symantec's Automated Support Assistant to determine the problem and it reported that my Windows 98 SE was running in audit mode.  Per Symantec, this a special mode that was enabled by Dell and should have been turned off before the computer was shipped.  The fix is to disable audit mode.  Following Symantec's instructions, I backed up my registry and then edited the registry to disable audit mode.  I didn't note any problems as a result of editing the registry.  However, see below.

2.  In Device Manager, both the primary and secondary IDE controllers are showing exclamation points in yellow boxes, indicating problems.  The error message says:

This device is not present or is not working properly or does not have all drivers installed. 

As recommended, I tried upgrading the driver, but got the message "Best driver found already installed."

The Performance Tab in Device Manager indicated:

Compatibility-mode paging reduces overall system performance.
Drive C is using MS-DOS compatibility mode file system.

(The hard drive is noticeably slower.  Windows no longer recognizes the CDROM drive.  I can use the CDROM drive when using a Windows boot disk, however.)

In attempting to resolve this problem, I followed the troubleshooting steps outlined in Microsft.com Article 130179.

I verified that the "Disable all 32-bit protected mode disk drivers" check box was NOT selected in the Troubleshooting tab in File System Properties.

I verified that there were no resource conflicts.

I checked to see if the protected-mode driver is in the Windows\System\Iosubsystem directory and is loading properly.  I restarted Windows in Logged mode and learned that

C:\Windows\System\Iosubsystem\ESDI_506.pdr

Was reported as "init failure" after two tries.
As suggested in Article 130179, I checked the file "Ios.log" for clues, but was not smart enough to understand what I saw there.  The initial lines read:

Unknown int 13 hooker MBRINT13
Unit number 02 going through real mode drivers

Driver Name:  mbrint13.sys
    Character Driver
    Driver Info:
        Int 13 Hook:  9100078E

I verified that the protected mode driver, ESDI_506.PDR was not damaged, by replacing the original version with one downloaded from the internet.  No improvement.

I verified that the Mh32bit.386 driver was NOT loaded by the System.ini file.

I've run out of ideas on this issue.  Any idea what I should do now to further diagnose and cure this problem?

3.  Finally, at startup, I'm getting an error message:

The amount of system memory has been changed or the suspend to disk file is absent.  See "suspend to disk file" in the On-Line User's Guide.

Following the instructions in the Inspiron 7500 System Reference and Troubleshooting Guide at page 2-12, I checked to determine the size of the "save-to-disk suspend file" and got a message which said "file not present."  I then tried to create a new file, but at the command:

Phdisk /create /file

I got yet another error message:

No DOS partition on hard disk drive 0!!  Aborting process.

4.  I'm at a total loss on what to do or where to go next, given the multiple problems I seem to be experiencing.  Anyone out there got any ideas?  I'll be eternally grateful for any suggestions, before I tie a piece of line on this thing and make it a boat anchor....

seabeejon