The computer runs through it's initial checks but when it gets to the C: drive (hard disk) it beeps twice and displays the message: 'hard disk failure Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility' On checking the setup, all the information seems to be correct. This all happened after the battery lost power. What could be the problem? HELP>>HELP>>HELP Thanks

Sounds like your machine lost it's mind. Get into bios and at the first screen (standard cmos setup or something like that) your hdd should be identified. If not you'll need the hdd parameters and enter them manually. When the battery dies and you turn the pc off all config info is lost. Your machine doesn't know there's a harddrive in it.

I did that and it still did not work. I changed the battery again, reset the hdd parameters and it still did not work. ??????? What's with that?

What are the parameters or model number of your harddrive?

SkipCox: The hdd is a Dell 230-MB IDE and the parameters: Drive type - 40 Cylinders - 723 Heads - 13 Sectors - 51 I have tried everything suggested from many sources, I hope you can help. Thanks you.

So type 40 won't work and setting C,H,S doesn't work either? Try setting, Cyl 723 - Head 13 - Precomp 65535 - LandZ 722 - Sector 51 if the Dell bios allows. If no help, let us know the exact model of your machine and service tag number if there is one. In the meantime, I'll do a little more research.

This should be your drive: http://support.ap.dell.com/docs/dta/23540/ and http://th99.pley.org/h/txt/3414.txt May need to dig up the Dell Software Utilities Diskette for your particular machine to get this thing configured.