Contents 5
8 Removing the Hard Drive
Before You Begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Turning Off Your Computer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Before Working Inside Your Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Hard Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
9 Solving Problems
Dell Diagnostics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
When to Use the Dell Diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Drive Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
CD and DVD drive problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
If you there is no audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
If you hear an unfamiliar scraping or grinding sound . . . . . . . . . . 46
Hard drive problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
E-Mail, Modem, and Internet Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Keyboard Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
External Keyboard Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Unexpected Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Lockups and Software Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
The computer does not start up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
The computer stops responding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Slow computer performance or problems connecting to the Internet. . . 51
A program stops responding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
A program crashes repeatedly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
A program is designed for an earlier Windows operating system. . . . . 51
A solid blue screen appears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Other software problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Memory Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Network Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
PC Card Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Power Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53