[brutus6]

I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 running Vista. It will not boot. When you push the power button the key lock stays lit. the Caps lock and scroll lock flash 44 times then the system shuts down. Nothing on screen at all.

Tried the Fn key and F12 for diagnostics but not luck.

I removed the harddrive and hooked it up to a Sabrent 5 in 1 adapter to make it a USB drive. It came up for about 2 minutes and disconnected. Now it will not be recongnized.

Any ideas, bad harddrive?

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Hi brutus6
It is possible that the hard drive has failed & it is possible it hasn`t.
Have you tried removing the battery & running the laptop via the ac adapter,
also have you tried removing the ram stick/s to see if that makes a difference.
Some other things to try are remove the battery & ac adapter, press the power
on switch for about 30 seconds then re-insert the battery & power up, do the
same with the battery removed & the ac adapter attached if the battery option
does not work, this is to test the battery & ac adapter.
Try and get into the BIOS to see if the HDD is detected there, you could also
consider restoring the factory settings from here, dont forget to save & exit.
Here is how to clear the BIOS; http://www.ehow.com/...ell-laptop.html

Edited by phillpower2, 31 July 2010 - 05:58 PM.

[phillpower2]

Hi brutus6
It is possible that the hard drive has failed & it is possible it hasn`t.
Have you tried removing the battery & running the laptop via the ac adapter,
also have you tried removing the ram stick/s to see if that makes a difference.
Some other things to try are remove the battery & ac adapter, press the power
on switch for about 30 seconds then re-insert the battery & power up, do the
same with the battery removed & the ac adapter attached if the battery option
does not work, this is to test the battery & ac adapter.
Try and get into the BIOS to see if the HDD is detected there, you could also
consider restoring the factory settings from here, dont forget to save & exit.
Here is how to clear the BIOS; http://www.ehow.com/...ell-laptop.html

Edited by phillpower2, 31 July 2010 - 05:58 PM.

[brutus6]

Hi brutus6
It is possible that the hard drive has failed & it is possible it hasn`t.
Have you tried removing the battery & running the laptop via the ac adapter,
also have you tried removing the ram stick/s to see if that makes a difference.
Some other things to try are remove the battery & ac adapter, press the power
on switch for about 30 seconds then re-insert the battery & power up, do the
same with the battery removed & the ac adapter attached if the battery option
does not work, this is to test the battery & ac adapter.
Try and get into the BIOS to see if the HDD is detected there, you could also
consider restoring the factory settings from here, dont forget to save & exit.
Here is how to clear the BIOS; http://www.ehow.com/...ell-laptop.html

Phillpower2,

Thanks for getting back to me. I have tried everything you mentioned, except the Bios because I can't get that far. As I stated don't get anything but the solid green num lock and flashing cap and scoll lock.

I did remove the button battery CR2032 to reset the CMOS, hoped that that would work. No luck.

Next to borrow another sata to USB to at least see if my converter is bad.

Any other ideas would be welcome.

brutus6

I tried another hard drive to test me sata to usb cable and it did't recognize that one either so I may have 2 problems.

[phillpower2]

When you initially power up are you tapping the F2 key to attempt getting into the BIOS?
Your laptop does not need a HDD to be attached to get into the BIOS, if your computer will
not post the first thing to check out is the ram, remove, replace, swap slots etc, then
look at your power supply, is the battery charging/charged, is the ac adapter working correctly,
as the computer is shutting down it may be a MB issue and this includes the power jack on the
back of the laptop coming away from the MB (does not charge the battery or power the MB), other
possibilities are the CPU overheating due to a failed fan or the inside of the case needing to
be cleaned out of heat trapping dust (only attempt opening the case if you are confident you
know what you are doing) an outside problem could be the graphics card failing, dependent on
what model MB you have some of the gfx cards can be replaced if it has failed.
How old is the laptop & has it ever been cleaned out?
Here is a video which addresses the dust issues and cleaning out laptops;

[phillpower2]

Found a couple of things you may find useful;
Check out the advice given by The Admiral
http://www.geekstogo...05-laptop-gone/
Just in case you don`t have this here is your user manual;
http://support.dell....en/om/specs.htm