I can't help those that don't backup or take the hint that the drive is failing either. This seems to be the only way people learn at times. At least I'll make your the BACKUP POSTER PERSON OF THE MONTH if that makes you feel better.
Try one last thing. Load the BIOS defaults and make sure it's on a good IDE cable.
Bob
Ok, I'm on a computer at the library. Because of loudness of my Dell Dimension 8200, I called Dell about the problem. Anyway, after some tests and unplugging fans and my hard drive, we came to the conclusion that we needed a new HD. Anyway, Dell is sending a new one, blah blah blah. The main concern is that now the hard drive doesn't work and I can't start-up the computer. I get an error like "can't find hard drive (device 0). Before, the HDD work perfectly other than the noise. I want to recover some of my files off the old HDD before I get the new one. Dell was un-helpful. Any suggestions. I've already tried un-plugging and re-plugging the HDD.

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