Boot, immediately press F12 and choose the Dell diagnostics from the menu. Test the hard drive - you will likely find that it has failed.

Errr what do you mean by that, Boot off the hardrive?

And btw, I tried using an ms dos startup disk to run the winnt32.exe file dell told me to use in that guide. It gives me the message "this program cant be ran in dos" So how do I run the program if windows wont start :\

Triggerhappyxt:

Shut down your system. Push the button to restart, then follow the instructions given above.

My warentys been over for awhile... so does this mean I need a new hard drive? And theres absolutely no way to fix it?

Message Edited by Triggerhappyxt on 09-04-2005 05:26 PM

So I could get a small hard drive and use that to boot up and Id still be able to acess the hard drive thats in there now correct? If thats the case then would I be able to take the hardrive outta my dads computer and use it to start up, then reinstall the os onto the original hardrive and it would work?

Ok closest option I could find to that was like ide diagnostics or something... anyway it told me this-

Primary IDE
Drive 0: st380011A-Fail Return code:7
Drive 1: No IDE Device
Secondary IDE
Samsung CD-Rom Sc-148A Diagnostic not suported
Samsung CDRW/DVD Sm-352f Diagnostic not suported

ejn63 called it correctly, your hard drive has failed. If you're under warranty, call Dell and they will ship out a new drive. Please mention (they'll ask anyway) that you ran this test and give them the results.

Yes, you need a new hard drive. No, there's no way to repair it.

Once you've installed a new drive, loaded and patched XP, you might try connecting the failed drive as a secondary. You may be able to retrieve some or all of your data, but your OS and programs will need to be installed from your original media.

No. The original hard drive, as you've seen from the diagnostics, has failed. It MUST BE REPLACED.

Unless you plan to pull a boot drive from the exact same model system, it will not boot in the one you've got with the faulty drive. In fact, you may render it corrupt if you try moving it to a system with different hardware.

You are going to need a new, permanent replacement drive for that system. Once you have it in place, format it, install Windows, patch fully, and THEN try TEMPORARILY connecting the old drive to see if you can recover anything. It's not guaranteed - and if it does not work, but you need the data, you'll need to contact a data recovery service - those services start at upward of $1,000 and can escalate to many times that amount, however, for a difficult recovery.

ok thankyou for all your help, Im running a few last diagnostic check things and then Im going to call dell just to be sure...


Anyway thankyou for all your help its greatly apreciated.