Dell Dimension E520 Crash

Hi Everyone

I have a 3 yr old Dell Dimension E520 with 1GB RAM and a 250 GB HD. It crashed 2 weeks ago and I'm unsure of what's going on with it. I talked to a friend and he helped me run 2 tests and he's pretty sure it's not the HD.
I'm limited in my knowledge of computers and don't know the lingo but I know more than some through my "gotta figure this out" mentality.
I wasn't able to find out what the error code meant. I went to the Dell site and I Googled it as well and didn't find anything to help me.

Here are the results of the 2 tests I was able to run:

Error Code 0F00: 137E
IDE device failed: media contains audio data only. Test requires media with data tracks. (resource CD, Installation CD)

Hard Drive Diagnostics:
Drive 0- WDC WD2500JS-75NCB3 Pass
Drive 1- Sony DVD+-RW AW Q605 Diagnostics not supported
Drive 2-5 No Device

I then went into the startup menu and clicked on boot from the OS CD and was unable to do so.

Any and all help into this issue would be awsome.
Please talk in laymans terms so I can understand :-o
thanks so much
Lil-NDN

 

The CD says:
Operating System
Reinstallation DVD

It doesn't say anything about audio.


Thanks for responding
Lil-NDN

 

From what I see you ran some sort of Dell diagnostic. The HD passed the test and the DVDROM could not be tested because it did not have a data disc in it at the time of the test. That is OK because you know your HD is functioning.

I guess the question is what do you want to do? If you start your computer with no disc in the DVD tray what happens? Do you get a blue screen and error message? What is the error message you get and is it the same that you googled? The error code quoted below is just for the diagnostic test and not important.

We need to know what happens when you try to start your computer in order to try and help you.

***************
If you don't care about any files currently on your PC you should be able to load back to factory presets. This is "out of the box" condition all your settings and personal files will be gone. You will have to reinstall any software you have added since you bought the computer.

If you are considering just starting fresh then we should be able to troubleshoot why you couldn't boot from the CD. Do you also have the Drivers CD?

There may also be an option of <ctrl> and F11 to do a complete recovery but it will also delete all existing files.