alphadigger.

Reads like the hard drive has failed and as the system is under warranty, phone Dell's Technical Support about having the drive replaced.

Bev. 

is it clicking when you try to start the computer? This happens to my 180GXP 60GB. It has happened periodically the last few months with the earliest in Oct 03. First i try to shutoff and then turn on, most of the time that works, but sometimes it doesn't so i I usually just reset the CMOS and the oddly enough the clicking stops. The harddrive it self is not bad as it has always been like this. I like it's just screwing up when it starts. It's like the platter is stuck and it just keeps clicking. But if resetting the CMOS fixes it it leads me to believe it's doing that from a signal from the BIOS. My last CMOS reset was 2 weeks ago and no clicks so far. Its a speratic problem. I have lastest BIOS and firmware.

My Brand new, Out of the Box, Dimension 4600 2.6 HT 80G HD, has the same problem. See

//http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_harddrive&message.id=61031

Dell has set up a home service call to replace it.

Keep trying to reboot it, you may get lucky. If so, back it up.

 

Here is the report from Dell's diagnostic disk:

IDE DISK:

Error Code 0F00:0138

Msg: IDE device failed; ECC circuitry error.

Guess the disk is bad.