Well, it's been a difficult time TRYING to get the computer to recognise a disc or a USB stick. After worrying myself sick about losing all my huge collection of PHOTOS and digital art if it crashed totally, I ended up having a guy do a home visit. He took out the Hard Drive and we copied as much info as we could onto my laptop. It was also scanned and we hoped, fixed errors on the disc. Then we put it back in and tried to get it running and the problem was still there. That disc was not recognised, or it was locked, and so on, we just couldn't repair it.

This 'sometimes' beautiful Dell is only six MONTHS old and needed a new motherboard almost from day 1 because it wouldn't boot, the CD drive mechanism replaced a couple of months later, it wouldn't (and still doesn't) turn on on first press on the switch, but will on the second, and now there seems to be a connection issue from the hard drive that has caused the current problem.

We just about gave up and had one last try with my OS disc, and after 10 MINUTES, it recognised it and went on to install...... but didn't do a full one (?). I didn't need to put the drivers in and my desktop image from before came up! Weird!

Goodness knows what the hours my man spent will cost me. He is writing all the details on his invoice, and his opinion that my Dell is a 'lemon' and should be replaced. I will be writing to Dell and asking for a replacement.

Thank you for your assistance, I tell evreyone how great this forum is.

You're welcome. I will lock this thread. If you need it re-opened, PLEASE send me a pm.