Is this a hard drive problem?

Not necessarily,  Does an error message pop-up?  Is there a blank screen that says: "No Operating System?" 

You may want to check the boot sequence in your BIOS.

No, just the Dell logo.

I've been hitting the reset button and the same thing happens each time.

 

I just now pulled the plug, waited five minutes and reattached the plug and restarted and  everything is all right, can't understand it. Almost afraid to shut it down again. Is there something I can check into while it's running.

Do you think it could be the hard drive starting to go?

Thank you very much for your time.

I'm not sure if it's the hard drive or not, though there are many symptoms or indications of a hard drive going bad.  What O/S are you running?  Win98, XP?   If you have an Anti-Virus program such as McAfee, Norton etc.,. and you have the latest virus definition(s),  try running it to see if you have any infected files or folders.   Hope this helps...

Running XP Pro.

Computer: XPS B 933

It's almost 4 years old and that's why I'm wondering if it could be the hard drive.

Taken your advise and I'm now scanning the computer.

The only other reason that I can think of is that when I shut it down the other night that it hung and didn't shut down completely.  I also shut the monitor down and that's why I didn't notice it was still running.  It has done that in the past but I've noticed it and shut the power and restarted then shut it down again.

Do you have any idea why it hung and didn't shut down.

Thanks for your help.