[Margaret Pilkington]

Ooh Rainbow six.....well, can I start with the easiest?
The box tripped because of a faulty toaster....now fixed.

It was the 'short test diagnostics' that brought up fail on the hard drive.
Further research shows that what you are saying about error logs is true.

As for adding the hard drive to another machine to take off the files....I do not have a compatible machine....so that would be a job for the IT tech boys at Rishton

Yes I do get the stuff about the computer...the Dell logo and the model comes up....then the blurb about initialising....then it all goes to black and the cursor.

The computer only beeps when I go into f12 boot options.
And yes, the diagnostics is still running.
I do not have(to my knowledge) a restore partition.
I am not sure I would know what to do with it.

All I have is an external hard drive....on which I backed up this machine(well for a long time I did...but then lapsed)

It is looking like a trip to the tech guys is on the cards.
(Unless, of course, you know anything magical that would fix the thing)
Thank you for your helpful response