For the past week I've had a problem with my computer and I think I've narrowed it down to the hard drive. The computer is a Dell Dimension running Vista. Last week I noticed it had a blue/ black screen and no keys would bring it out of that state. I turned it off then on and it came to a "Windows Error Recovery" screen. Clicking on Startup Repair just kept bringing me back to this screen. I've tried everything and can't get windows to load; I can't get to safe mode at all, and I can't boot from the Dell Windows Disk. I've played with it continually and I've gotten nowhere. I tried to get to a C prompt to erase the hd and start over but I can't get to a command prompt. I finally was able to boot from the disk and it shows that windows is loading files, but I then get a blue screen showing a recent hardware or software change is causing problems and asks me to boot into safe mode, (which I can't do). I tried loading the Windows XP disk and it loaded files, but it came back to a blue screen with an error code, (googling the error code got me nowhere), and that windows was shut down to stop the computer from being damaged. I remember doing a self diagnostic on the hd while it was in the computer and it checked out ok. I read a post from a person having troubles with their hd and someone told them to remove it, put the windows cd back in and restart the computer. I did that and it noticed that the hd was not there and I had the option of f1 to retry or f2 to go to the system setup. Neither button did anything.
So my question is how do I find out if my hard drive is fried? I don't want to spend money on a hard drive that can't be returned if its something else. If anyone has any ideas please let me know. Remember I CAN'T download anything onto the computer or get to safe mode.
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