You are the likely victim of an ignorant Tech from Dell, in my humble opinion (IMHO).  I believe your HDD is toast and you need it replaced.  I had the same thing and a quick and wise person told me that I was S O L (sorry out of luck... the clean version).  If you do re-install (and are able to... I highly doubt that it will work but really hope that I am wrong for your sake), I would try the repair the Windows first.  XP will allow for a full repair by fully reinstalling everything over the old version (all of your data and app's will be there, but you will have to download all of the updates all over again).  Try that first before you wipe your HDD.  If that does not work then I would get an external HDD (USB 2.0 and Norton Ghost) to try to clone the drive, so you can access your info.  I would recommend an external HDD for backing up in any case.  I have an 80 Gig where I make 2 different clones.  These can then be cloned right back on my laptop.  I now have 2 partitions for date purposes (one 2 weeks old and one 1 week old), since I had a HDD failure that I was not expecting.  Basically, the last clone that I made was corrupt because my HDD was beginning to fail and parts of the clone were corrupt.  The good news is that I was able to pull all of my data from it, so nothing major was lost.  I hope this helps and let me know if I can help with anything else.

Unfortunately, I think the Dell Tech may be getting you to spin your wheels, but hopefully I am wrong.

Thanks so much for your reply... It turns out you are right... I called Dell Tech again and got another person who had me try the repair windows, which it wouldn't do... got "unrecoverable volume errors" messages... so he said would ship a new hard drive within 48 hours. 

I understand from other posts that the "new" hd's that Dell ships in these cases are usually refurbished, not actually new, but I guess that's ok if it works.   I'm just disgusted that we've used Dell computers since the first one was out and never problems like we've had with the ones we bought this year...!!

Thanks again... oh, and I'm going to get Norton system works with ghost and start using it.

japay

First I would pull the hdd out of the notebook, lay it on the table, lay your open hand over the hdd, grasp it with that one hand (palm it), then give it s few sharp hard twists horizontally (you are trying to spin the internal disks).  Then reinsert it firmly into the notebook and see if it will boot.  Back things up if it does.

It is for real, but its a last ditch effort. If your drive already doesn't work, you have nothing to lose, and doing this is not too likely to damage the drive anyways.

Hey johnallg... is this for real?   I am willing to try it, but how to I assure I don't break it for good?

Thanks... japay

It will not damage the drive ever.  You are trying to move the platter(s) inside the drive.  When bearings start to go, they can stick, and since the drive motor is pulsed at startup to get the disc(s) spinning, if they are reluctant, they will not start.  In the early days when the heads would just drop on the platter when powered down, if any moisture got inside the drive, they would actually stick.  Now heads are parked off the platter, so that doesn't happen any more, but the bearings can actually not want to turn easily.

I have indeed learned something new today.  Thanks!

Then there is the freeze fix.... 

Ok, I'm a fairly gullible person... is this one a joke?   We had to be away for a day or so, so tonight I'm going to "shake" the old hdd and see what happens!   Thanks again...

You put a hdd you cannot access in a ziploc bag in a freezer overnight, then be ready to put it in a desktop to back up or image when you pull it out of the freezer.  We have done it many times to ghost a drive that has died otherwise.  Legit.

Actually, I knew about the freeze one.  It is a legitimate last ditch fix to try to recover your data.  ... basically, no it is NOT a joke.  It may work and I would try it if you can.

Yup, with emphasis on starting the backup or image immediately.  It allows quite a few unaccessable drives to be recognized.

The freezing trick is pretty common, and has worked for me too. It often can enable the drive to start spinning and get recognized by the system. You can then immidietly backup your important data.

Wow, I'm learning lot of fun...hopefully useful stuff here!!   Sorry to bother you again, but could you please let me know how you can backup or ghost the drive when you can't even access it?

does the freezing make it possibly open up when windows tries to start?

Thanks again...

japay,   aka: confused in Alabama!

It's in the freezer now... I can hardly wait til morning!!