Dell Dimension 8250 question?

Possibly, but let's try running some tests first. Do you have the Drivers and Utilities CD that was sent with your computer?

yes

Great. Please put that in the CD drive and turn off the computer. Then turn the computer back on and start tapping the <F12> key, maybe once or twice a second. This will get you into the Boot Device Selection menu. Arrow down to Onboard or USB CD-ROM Device and press Enter. This will boot to the CD and let us run some tests. Once you get to a grey window on a blue screen, select Custom Tests, click the (+) sign next to the Hard Drives category, then click on your hard drive to highlight it. Don't worry, there will only be one. With your hard drive highlighted, click the Run Tests button in the bottom left corner. This will run some extensive hard drive tests.

Please report back with any error messages!

The only choices I have are Diskette Drive, IDE CD-ROM Device System setup, IDE Device Diagnostics, & Boot to Utility Partition?

I tried the IDE CD-ROM Device and got the following reply: Strike the F1 Key to continue or F2 to run utility setup

Do you only have one CD drive? Try moving the CD to the other drive, if there is one.

You can also try booting to the utility partition, but I doubt that will work since your hard drive isn't recognized.