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A family friend was recently having some trouble with an older Dell Dimension 4550.  One day, the computer started exhibiting disk errors, and would no longer boot.  The specific error was “A disk error occurred - CTL ALT DEL to reboot”.  Based on the error, one would think that there was a disk error.  The computer had recently been shut off from a power outage, and there was a good chance that the disk had in fact gone bad.

At this point, it was off to the common trouble shooting steps.  Reseating the system memory (RAM), replacing the hard drive cable, and replacing the hard disk itself.  Replacing the hard disk proved to be interesting.  After installing the new disk (and verifying that the system BIOS could see it), I proceeded to re-install the operating system (Windows XP Home Edition).  After the installation routine had successfully copied all of its files to the drive, the computer automatically rebooted and exhibited the same disk error message.  Hmmm… a disk that is writeable but cannot be read?  I’ve never heard of that happening.

Out of ideas, I turned to the system BIOS.  The version running was A03 and an update to version A08 was available on the Dell support site.  After a quick burn of the new BIOS (and a quick boot with a Windows 98 Boot CD), I was able to apply the update and reboot the computer.  At this point, I re-installed the supposedly bad hard disk, crossed my fingers and rebooted once more.

Success!  The computer booted with no further problems and showed no further signs of not functioning.  This is truly one of the most disturbing PC hardware troubleshooting adventures I have gone on, as the system BIOS appears to have corrupted itself or fallen out of favor with itself.  Next time I sit down with a Dell with a hard disk error, its off to the BIOS for me.