I've a mess - used a duplicate file removal program. Upon restart - nothing, just the Dell opening screen over and over. Couldn't boot into safe mode, windows CD recovery or nothing! Installed a new drive, OS, etc. all seems fine except the old drive isn't recognized nor is a new dvd drive I installed shortly after. Would sure like to recover the data off that original drive - is this a controller issue? Do I need to make a floppy and do the F6 from the Windows CD? Setup has these drives on, but upon booting I get a F1 request to continue and that the 2 drives are unknown. Oddly enough, the DVD drive shows up in device manager, the 2 Hard Drive does not. Cannot boot from the DVD either, but it will run programs. This has been made worse by the fact that my Dell drivers & utilities CD was only for the modem. I've spent an entire day downloading drivers. Never Again! I know this is long, but any help would be so appreciated - thanks! Jeanette