hdd confidence test problem

[WaveDemon]

My lap top won't boot up. it goes to the dell splash screen and just shows a blinking cursor. I ran a symptom diagnosis on "test for cannot boot the OS" it check and passed lots of stuff but it didn't pass or fail a confidence test on the hard drive. it acts like it skipped that test but I'm pretty sure it didn't.

I've read that on Dell lap tops from that era (about 4 years old) had a bios limit of 137 gb, they would let you install a bigger drive but when the hdd actually stored more the bios wouldn't recognize it. Does this sound feasable?

if so what would be the easiest way to boot up so I can move files onto an external hard drive?

[WaveDemon]

weird, just did a hdd confidence test only and it passed it.

rebooted computer and still won't load the OS.

[tor*p*do]

go into the bios and set it to boot/load the OS from CD
stil in your OS CD and start up
sounds like the HDD is cr@pping out on you:261:

[WaveDemon]

looks like in bios there is a 137 gb limit on my hdd size. now I need to figure out how to make a boot disk for my lap top on my bro's Mac.


hmmm

[AtomicPunk]

do you have an original OS disk? if so, you can (carefully) re-install the OS and see if that works.
I am guessing that lappy is older than 4 years.

If not, I have a HDD adapter we can use to pull your porn off, assuming the files are not corrupt. :biggthumpup:

lemme know if I can help.