Laptop froze up and won't restart

Hey there, y'all! Ok, I was working on something Sunday night on my Dell Inspiron 6000. All of a sudden, everything freezes and locks up - the cursor won't move or anything. I gave it a while (like a half hour) to unfreeze and nothing changed. Finally, I powered it off completely. When I try to restart it, I only get a black screen and the 3 "padlock" indicators above my keyboard light up, I hear a very slight click, and everything shuts off. So, basically, I'm not able to even power it on now. I've tried it on straight power from the wall by removing the battery & tried it on battery only but still get nothing. Does this sound like something I can fix myself or does she need to go to the puter doc?

 

This doesn't sound good. Have you tried booting from other than your hard drive?

Dins

 

Sorry for this stupid question but how do you boot other than from the hard drive?

 

Like a CD. If the laptop came with a software install disc that has Windows on it (usually green in color from Dell). Or, if you happen to have a Microsoft Windows Installation CD.

It sounds like your hard drive has failed though, if you're under warranty with Dell, give em a call. If not, find a local computer repair store to have it checked out.

 

Ok, I'll try that....only thing is, the dvd drive won't open. Hmmm......I'll keep tinkering with it and see what happens. Thanks so much! Cross your fingers for me!