My HUSBAND hand carried his Dell Vostro 220s to a new office. When I hooked it up and turned it on, it booted to a blue screen and instructed me that "if this is the first time you have seen this screen, reboot" and was performing a dump. So I powered it down and back up and displayed a blank screen with a blinking cursor. I had seen the blue screen some time ago but it always booted to the desktop but not this time. THINKING it happened last time after adding a Dell PRINTER, I removed all the peripherals and REBOOTED. This time the Dell splash screen came up and the progress bar only completed to the mid point. Things I have done: F12 into the CMOS screen. Changed the boot devices to cd/rom, hard drive, removable. F2 into system setup and ran diagnostics off the partition. Everything passed but for the hard drive hard drive DST short test...test results: not applicable". Booted to the CD-ROM and ran those diagnostics. Everything passed but did not see the hard drive. Reset the cmos jumper cable. Now if I leave the screen for a while, it posts to: cd-rom boot priority no medium (no disk is in drive) no boot device available. The hd drive light comes on and stays on until it displays the post screen. Removed the cables to the hard drive from the drive and MOTHER board and reseated. I'm out of ideas. Please help, my husband needs his files.

If trying to regain the files is your highest priority. Remove the HDD from the current computer. Attach it via the appropriate cables to another computer. It need not be actually installed in the computer just be careful that it is stable and won't fall. If appropriate set the cable select to "slave" and hopefully the other computer will detect the drive and give you access to the files thereon. If it doesn't work that could indicate a failed HDD.good luck,truenorth