computer won't boot, blames keyboard, blames hard drive

[LeapFrog]

I would give the bios reset a try -- again, this is a long shot but I really don't know what else you can do yourself.

[mustmuck]

Yeah, pull the battery (should be explained in your manual if you have trouble). You could try the Dell forums if that doesn't work. You should be able to get a replacement MB from Dell, not sure how much they'd charge though.

[soah]

I took the battery out for a minute. No change.

Shouldn't that have reset the clock though? it didn't

[Beavis68]

may need to wait for some caps to fully discharge.

[_dave_]

This sounds like a motherboard that is on it's way out.

2nd bet is a hard disk on it's way out [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

If you have data on there you'd rather not lose, make sure to back it up next time you can get it to boot successfully.

[mustmuck]

[ QUOTE ]
I took the battery out for a minute. No change.

Shouldn't that have reset the clock though? it didn't

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you unplug it?

[soah]

apparently not

did it properly and now have this message:

Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A07
Copyright 1985-1988 Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
Copyright 1990-2006 Dell Inc.
All Rights Reserved

Dell DXP051 Series
BIOS version A07
www.dell.com

Performing automatic IDE configuration...
Drive 0: Disk Drive
Drive 4: CD-ROM Device
Floppy diskette seek failure
Time-of-day not set - please run SETUP program
Invalid configuration information - please run SETUP program
Alert! Previous fan failure.
Alert! System battery voltage is low.
Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility


the good news is I see a green light on my keyboard...

I push F2 and I'm in Setup now.

I will report back soon.

[soah]

So I had to tell BIOS that I have no floppy drive, and fix date and time, and everything works fine now.

ty for all the help