i was reformatting my computer and it was working fine. the only thing was that my windows vista reinstallation disc got stuck in my slot loading cd-rom drive.
and all of a sudden on my desktop i got notifications that said "A SMART event has occurred, a hard drive will fail in the future" something along those lines. i turned off my laptop and tried turning it on again.
the dell loading SCREEN came on and then after that it just goes to a black screen with a white cursor blinking in the upper left hand corner and that's it.
what is wrong with my laptop? is it my hard drive or what? i really hope i don't have to replace my laptop because that's something i just can't afford right now and i NEED access to a computer because of work and school. help would really be appreciated.

it's a dell xps m1530 and it's abotu 2 yrs old. If you had already started the format/install process unfortunately you can't expect that machine to boot PROPERLY again...

A SMART warning means indeed that HDD is on it's way out...it may be 3 months or it may be a day.

Shop around for a replacement HDD in the meantime...collect all your laptop drivers and try the re-install on a NEW HDD...thanks so basically its a HDD problem? should i just buy an external cd drive to install my OS and drivers once i get a new HDD since my reinstallation disc got stuck in my current cd slot loading drive?You should "unstick" the reinstallation disc first.You can't install Windows to an external drive and get it to boot reliably on any machine without a crowbar and 3 daus work...
Not the way to go.Quote from: patio on September 26, 2009, 05:13:27 PM

You can't install Windows to an external drive and get it to boot reliably on any machine without a crowbar and 3 daus work...