I have a dell dimension 5000. recently the disk drive started opening of its own accord during start up. using the button it would then generally close after 1 or two presses of the button. now it will not open at all either by pressing the button or selecting eject via "my computer". is there a solution or does it need replacing?

Solid Amber Light on Dimension 4500 - Power supply is suspect ...

en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/.../t/18332108?...

Dell
Feb 12, 2007 - 14 posts - ‎4 authors
I have a Dimension 4500 that is obviously a few years old. ... So when I push thepower button "on" now, the light is a constant ... I pulled of the 20-prong conection (to the motherboard) and jumped ... The fan itself can be replaced, if you're good at mechanical projects. .... And the computer started right up. Boot Up Problem With Dell Dimension 4500 - General ...
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CNETAug 5, 2009 - My dell dimension 4500 was accidentally turned off at the power strip and ... There is a light behind the button but no lights on back of computer. ... I have a Dimension 2400 that I'm not using--could I try that power supply in it?

Dell Dimension 4600 won't power up {Resolved} - Virtual Dr

You will a full blown version of whatever software you want to install. Also try using the F8 key during bootup. See if the computer will boot up into Safe Mode. You should be able to made System restore disks from there if it will get that far.

This might be caused by hard-drive failure. You should run hard drive test from BIOS to make sure hard drive is ok. You can access BIOS by pressing F2 during start up, from there start hard disk self test and wait for it to complete.

If hard drive is ok after test, insert in your original Windows installation media and reinstall OS.

You have to format a hard drive with a third party disk unless its a usb data drive
Restart your computer

During the boot process you will see on the screen to press a certain key to enter setup

Press and hold that key during the boot up process to enter BIOS then using the arrow keys navigate to advanced bios features press enter change your first boot device to cd press escape then press f10 to save to cmos restart

or if you are using a USB
insert your usb drive
click start right click on my computer select open you should see your USB drive
right click then select format
another way is to control panel administrive tools,computer management disk management right click on your drive select format
hope this helps

Check the manufacturer's web-site:

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&cs=2684&l=en&s=pub&os=WW1&osl=en&SystemID=DIM_PNT_P4_4500&catid=-1&impid=-1

for your (7-year-old) model, and you'll find a list of PATA (Parallel-ATA) disk-drives recommended by Dell, up to 120GB. Any PATA disk-drive that you can buy, up to 500GB, should also work.

yeah unfortunitly you might have to reformat the entire hard drive and start from scratch

Your 0 Drive is the main hard disk drive in your computer. That is where Windows is installed. If the pc doesn't see it, it cannot start. If you've moved, the hard drive cable or power connection may have come loose. You can try opening the case and reseating all connections and see if that works. If not, it's possible your hard drive is damaged and not working.

I hate to say this but it sounds like your hard drive has crashed. I would purchase another for about 80 dollars and reinstall windows.

You need to change your power save options. Right click on the desktop, click properties, click tab screensaver click on power tab. set the desired power save functions. hope this helps

you cleared the bios settings by removing the battery.
Go into the dell bios at startup F2
make sure it sees the cd rom drive
then save and exit
should fix the issue