Follie,

Blinking Power LED = most likely a bad power supply. What color are the 4 Diagnostic Lights? Yes, you can put the hard disk drive in another PC and get the data.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for answering.  There are what look like 6 leds underneath a removable front panel.  If these are the diagnostic lights, none are lit up.  There are no other lights to be seen other than the power button & mobo light.  Hoping its just the power supply.

Also, I have an external hard drive case from a Maxtor 250GB drive (with power supply) that went bad.  Can I put the hard drive from the Dell desktop in that case (dimensions are OK)?  Will the external drive be bootable?

Follie

If your external case supports SATA hard drives, that would be fine and I doubt it would be bootable, but you should be able to attach it to working system to recover the files and folders.

There are 4 diagnostic lights, see HERE

5150/E510 systems do not use a Dell proprietary power supply, you can install most generic ATX power supplies with either a 24-pin or 20+4-pin main motherboard power connector.

As the D-5150/E510 has an open back panel, a power supply with or without the on/off switch can be used and can be purchased from most local or online computer stores.

A power supply with a minimum of two SATA power connectors is needed.

HOW to replace the power supply.

Bev.