I had to call Dell and open a new service call.I caleld Dell again, and there's nothing I can do until I get back in town, at which time I have to call them again and open a new service call. Plus, I'll have to make arrangements to be home during the week so I can have the technician come over.Meanwhile, I was able to boot with a Knoppix Linux CD and verify that the data on the hard drive is intact. If I can figure out how to get Knoppix to recognize my external Maxtor USB drive, I can copy my data from the old drive before it gets replaced, which will make things simpler. I don't have a bootable Windows CD, and the Dell doesn't have a floppy drive. I may also try replacing the iastor.sys and associated drivers with the newest versions from Intel, to see if that lets me boot off the original drive. It seems the Intel drivers are only available as part of an install package, so I have to see if there's a way to get the driver files without actually running an installer.Stay tuned