[jweidner]

my hdd on my dell inspiron 6000 won't boot. it gets past the BIOS options and then says that there is an error and to press ctrl+alt+del to try again. it does the same thing repeatedly. i dont know what the error number is right now because i'm running a hdd diagnostic and do not want to interfere with it. any suggestions would be wonderful.

 

[jweidner]

i also tried a backtrack linux boot disc from the cd drive and it said that the hdd was unmounted and consistently failed each time i attempted to mount it.

 

[EndTime]

It would help to know the exact error your coming up with!

 

[TriggerFinger]

are you running XP and do you have an XP install CD? if so, do CHKDSK /R in Recovery Console and non-destructive repair such as this one: http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=189400897

run Memtest86+ too to test your RAM. btw, did the harddrive diagnostic complete without errors?