Need Help! I think my hard drive is dead!

[Allan]

I sure wouldn't buy a drive from them. Newegg.com will be much more reasonable. I would start by slaving this drive in a friend's computer to see if the files can be seen and if so copy them to that external. I would do this before running chkdsk or anything else which may damage what's on there.

1) While I agree retail outlets such as Newegg or Amazon may prove cheaper, there is noting wrong with purchasing a driver from Dell.

2) Running checkdisk will not damage anything.

[oregonbean]

Well,  I ended up buying a new computer, and the tech support/repair department at the store was able to transfer the files from my old hard drive onto an external drive for me--it  was about a hair away from being completely dead.  Thank you to everyone who tried to help me figure out what the issue was on my own.  I will definitely recommend the website to my friends.