Dell Computer Problem

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Sounds like hard disk has either failed or corrupted.

If you don't know much about two computers then you have two options

1) contact Dell and get them to help. Be warned they will not save any data that is revoverable. If under warranty then this ought to be your first option, except for possible problems about data recovery.

2) contact a local computer shop, not the big one starting with P.

Hope this helps

DenisOxon

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Yeah sounds like the hard disk is dead or windows is corrupted, either way your looking at a big problem. Return it to dell if possible or if not, then be prepared to shell out a laod of cash, and most likely lose all of your stuff.

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How can I fix it myself?

batmanisi

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To do it yourself, buy a new hard disk and reinstall windows on it from the windows CD but if you have an oldish Dell then you probably wont have a CD, you would have probably had a recovery partition which is most likely dead, as it was on the hard disk, meaning youll need to shell out a load of cash (probably more than the PC) to buy a new Operating System.

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to get back your data supposedly putting your harddrive in the freezer helps...

Veteran Poster

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Um, before you waste time and money, make sure that the hd is connected properly.. Many times, a loose connection can occur when moving the computer and such. Open the case, and make sure that both the IDE and power connectors are firmly in place (I'm assuming its IDE, it could be SATA).

If this does nothing.. check in your BIOS whether or not it even shows the hd.. I suggest contacting dell, then a data recovery business.. they have some high-tech mirroring machines and such that can work some magic, and recover almost anything. Next, they should determine whether the hd is still usable or not.. if not, buy another one.. and hope you still have the product key to your OS lying around.

Industrious Poster

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do you know that the CIA can extract data by looking at the harddrive with a microscope?

Veteran Poster

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A microscope? Says who? Thats impossible.. the data is inside the hd on the little rotating disks.

Industrious Poster

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yeah they look at individual disks.

Veteran Poster

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Ah.. well the CIA can do anything.. they probably hack us all 20 times a day looking for terrorist information lol..

Industrious Poster

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lol, not with my firewall and os (I can almost hear CIA agents snickering ;-)

Veteran Poster

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dude, I've seen "Federal Bureau of Investigation" blocked on PeerGuardian before.. I was like, oh wtf? Pulled the plug, and just waited for a couple hours lol... I'm sure it was probably because of some website I was visiting or something..

But yea, you know the CIA has advanced technology that they wont tell anyone about.. makes it easy for that to hack us and such.. which helps them internationally, but I'm pretty sure thats illegal, and their information would not be used in the American court of law.

Industrious Poster

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NT orginally had a hidden backdoor in it for the CIA to spy on people but MS "claim" it doesnt exist

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1999/09/21589
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/1999/09/21577

checked it on my NT4,9x and 2k boxes. the key exists.

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Whoa.. thats very interesting.. Never heard of that before.. Just another reason why we should all use linux :)

There's no doubt in my mind that the NSA and Microsoft would develop such a scheme..

Industrious Poster

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But who knows maybe the CIA paid off RMS to modify gcc so when the linux kernel is compiled it produces a kernel with a fatal back door! That way not as many people would notice. I mean who really looks at gcc's code?

Veteran Poster

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I bet you there is a backdoor in the TCP/IP stack.

OpenBSD!

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True.. We are all being watched 24/7 by the U.S. government..

Industrious Poster

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Here's an ideal, take the hdd out if the dell and slave it in the other computer then see if you can access it. This will also let you know if it is a bad hdd or just corrupted os. Sence you aren't booting from it you should be able to access it. If you have a large enough primary hdd on that other computer do a file transfer of the programs you want to keep. Then wipe it clean and formatt it and put it back in the dell. If it has a recovery partition DO NOT formatt that partition, use that to reload the primary partition of that hdd.

dewabo

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It would have been read in the bios had the hd not been corrupted.