Grannytoo is this the same laptop you were here asking questions about last week sometime?

What exactly does 'nothing is working' mean?
Do any LED lights come on?
Do any LED lights blink indicating any activity?
Does a fan start up? You may need to get close to hear it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Grannytoo's original thread

Thanks to your help, the other laptop is working fine. It's a Compaq. This is a DELL Inspiron.

The fan is working. The power light is on, the CAPs lock light is on and the NUM lock light is on. Both the CAPs lock and the NUM lock lights flash continually. They would come on but didn't flash continually until the computer froze up. The CD drive will open and close and the light comes on for the CD drive but it won't read a disc.

Grannytoo; I assume you know, that when you do a clean install of any windows OS, especially a laptop, you should have all the drivers for that particular model downloaded from the laptop manufacturers site and burned to a CD as many components will not be working properly and all of the brand utilities will not be working until they are on the machine.

genes - With the CD rom not reading anything I can't install any drivers. Thanks for the reply.

Will it boot from the CD drive? You may have to adjust the BIOS settings first.

if it will recognize the usb ports you could try a usb flash drive.
Dell is so freaky about their stuff and extremely proprietary, was this install done with the Dell cd that came with that pc? If not that would be my guess.
the vista that you were trying to install had it been already used on another pc? and was vista on this pc that you were reformatting or was it xp or something else on their prior?

The CD drive isn't working since the computer froze up during the download. The USB ports aren't working either. WindowsXP was on the computer prior to the installation of Vista. It was working after the Vista installation until the downloads started.

Thanks for the replies. I'll take it to a repair place tomorrow to have it checked out.

From what you describe, something sounds like it was corrupted as part of the upgrade process.

Boot the computer, right after the Dell splash screen, tap F8 (you may have to tap it a few times and/or reboot a couple of times). You should get a menu that among other things has a repair option. Try that. If that doesn't do it, choose the Safe Mode option. Sometimes just getting Windows all the way up is enough to fix the problem.

Thanks for the reply Mike. Nothing comes up on the screen at all.

Any sounds?

Nothing on the screen indicates a problem not related to Windows because you're not even getting past the POST. Likely hardware related - could be lots of stuff - motherboard, video card, memory.

You might try pulling the battery (and disconnecting it from the wall charger) and letting it sit for 30 minutes or so. If that doesn't work, try pulling the coin cell (CMOS battery) - it's and a small access door on the back of the machine and also (again) the main battery. Let it sit again. Maybe you get lucky.

Thanks Mike. I sent it to a repair place for a free estimate. If it's not too much I'll have it repaired and if it is, they can have it for parts.

"Thanks Mike. I sent it to a repair place for a free estimate. If it's not too much I'll have it repaired and if it is, they can have it for parts."
If the repair is too expensive, rather than giving it to the repair shop..sell it for parts on Kijiji, Craiglist, Ebay or some other similar site..

Thanks, I'll do that.