If it is out of warrenty find a local independant computer repair shop.

Take her and her laptop to said shop and see what they say.

If it is inside warrenty you need to get it rturned to dell or get an engineer out, depending on the type of contract she has and get them to sort it.

I am very lucky my local shop doesn't charge for diagnostics at all and will tell you what parts to buy and then they stick them in for you and only charge £30 per hour.

If she wants to get the e-mails from the drive it might be best to stop trying to boot from the disk. I'd take the drive out and examine it on another computer (plenty of 2.5" caddies which will turn the drive into a usb disk). I'd get her to approach a neighbour for help.

I'm kind of confused with what the current state of the laptop is, first you it says it was resuming windows which means the hard drive is working, then Dell is saying the hard drive is dead.

I'm not able to determine what the current state is, so what im suggesting is go to google and search for BART PE, and follow the instructions to make a xp pre install disk. Send the BART PE disk to your friend to put it into her computer and see if the computer can start up with it. Then use the a43 file manager to see if she can access the contents of the hard drive. 1, this will show if the hard drive is working and 2, she can access her files and save them.

BART PE also has a chkdsk feature, so if its just her registry is a bit messed up, it maybe able to fix it so windows can bootup.

First, thanks to all of you who have posted and offered advice / suggestions. I will try to respond to each.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I'm kind of confused with what the current state of the laptop is, first you it says it was resuming windows which means the hard drive is working, then Dell is saying the hard drive is dead.

- I did not say it was resuming windows. I said that it displayed the message "resuming windows" but not in the usual Windows style of display, and without at any time indicating that it was trying to load windows or displaying any of the usual Windows-style messages or indeed anything recognisable as anything to do with Windows. So this may have been a message from the BIOS or some firmware which the computer displays when it has tried to load windows but not suceeded That would, presumably, be consistent with a hard disk failure.

- Dell did NOT say the hard disk was dead. That is my whole gripe about them: at no time have they ever even mentioned the possibilty of a hard disk failure, which makes me worry about their competence.

Regarding your suggestion of sending her an XP boot disk: thanks, might need to do that later if necessary, but sounds complicated.

I am just surprised that there isn't some simple, straightforward basic diagnostic or test which can be run, even by an inexperienced novice (with suitable guidance), at startup before the computer starts trying to load Windows, which gives a clear indication of "HD not working at all" / "HD working fine" / "HD working after - a fashion - but appears to have soem problems".

In reply to a post by john2007:

If she wants to get the e-mails from the drive it might be best to stop trying to boot from the disk. I'd take the drive out and examine it on another computer (plenty of 2.5" caddies which will turn the drive into a usb disk). I'd get her to approach a neighbour for help.

Thanks, but taking the HD out is hardly a job for a novice. Surely there must be some straighforward low-level test which can be run to see if the HD is dead or not, without having to mechanically dismantle the computer?

And why should a neighbour be any help? Many neighbours wouldn't even know how to switch a computer on ...

Where is one going to find a 2.5" caddy? Only an anorak enthusiast or a computer repairer isl likely to have one of those. You might as well say "Go to a local computer repairer" which might indeed be the best sdvice.

I've only used Toshiba and HP laptops where it is easy to change hard drive, memory, and wireless modules. Usually only a screwdriver is needed.

If she keeps an eye on her machine during power-up it should flash up a press F1 (or similar) message to enter BIOS. The BIOS menus may well have a hard drive test and will certainly indicate if the drive is recognized correctly.

I have caddies for various drive sizes. Your friend may have a neighbour like me.

Why are people so reluctant to ask neighbours for help?

In reply to a post by Titus:

I said that it displayed the message "resuming windows" but not in the usual Windows style of display, and without at any time indicating that it was trying to load windows or displaying any of the usual Windows-style messages or indeed anything recognisable as anything to do with Windows.

No, that is a msg. from Windows that it is "resuming windows" after forcibly hibernating the PC when the battery is near flat. It doesn't show any of the usual Windows-style messages other than this one until it resorts to the desktop that was current when it switched off. It does this "resume" from a file on the HDD, probably hiberfil.sys.

Go to a local computer repairer.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

If it is out of warrenty find a local independant computer repair shop.

Take her and her laptop to said shop and see what they say.

If it is inside warrenty you need to get it rturned to dell or get an engineer out, depending on the type of contract she has and get them to sort it.

I am very lucky my local shop doesn't charge for diagnostics at all and will tell you what parts to buy and then they stick them in for you and only charge £30 per hour.

Thanks. That sounds like good sense.

As I mentioned, it was bought in 2007 so is presumably well outside warranty.

I'm afraid I do not altogether understand the concept of "first line" and/or "second line" support. Does this imply that you get useful help from an Irish call centre if a Dell computer is under warranty, and a timewasting load of barely-intelligible script-reading from some Bogolese call centre if the computer is no longer under warranty?

My friend, having been extemely unimpressed by Dell's so-called "support" is now planning to take her computer to a local repairer, which is what several of you have suggestd.

As I have said elsewhere, I am just surprised that there does not seem to be some fairly straightforward basic diagnostic test which she could have run, to check whether or not the HD is indeed stuffed.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by Titus:

I said that it displayed the message "resuming windows" but not in the usual Windows style of display, and without at any time indicating that it was trying to load windows or displaying any of the usual Windows-style messages or indeed anything recognisable as anything to do with Windows.

No, that is a msg. from Windows that it is "resuming windows" after forcibly hibernating the PC when the battery is near flat. It doesn't show any of the usual Windows-style messages other than this one until it resorts to the desktop that was current when it switched off. It does this "resume" from a file on the HDD, probably hiberfil.sys.

Aah! Thank you.

So why should it do that on startup, when connected to the mains? There has been nothing to cause it to hibernate - has it just got corrupted somehow?

Does this mean the HD is OK, or that it might be dodgy in some way?

If the machine persistentluy refuses to load Windows properly, is there any straightforard diagnostic test which she could run (particularly, to test the hard disk), before getting as far as loading Windows?