Hey everyone, this is in response to my cry for help back on 3/2/01. After spending more hours with Dell tech, they finally determined I needed a new hard drive. My computer after, re-cabling, etc, just would not detect the c drive no matter what. We tried it all and switched the cables to make sure it was not a cable problem, which it wasnt.
Hope this helps anyone else. Am now re-installing everything, etc with tech help. Its a pain, but luckily this computer did not have anything crucial stored on the HD. A word to the wise... be sure to make your boot disks as soon as you get your new computer. I am not sure this would have made a difference, but it may have saved alot of tech hours as this problem I had was a mystery to everyone! They kept thinking it was a virus, which I had to prove it wasnt.
Good luck !