I have the same problem...flawless performance over the last 5 years...unheard of in today's world of DD's (disposable Dells!).
I went through the same steps. IMO, its a paperweight, UNLESS you have soldering skillz....it seems that is a blown circuit on the MoBo (geek talk for MOther BOard).
Anyway, here's how you can easily get that information off the old hard drive.
Go to StarTech.com
In the product search box in the upper right hand corner, enter in >>> IDE2510U2 <<<
Cost me about $20 or so through my local independent computer repair and re-seller.
This is the item that I got about 5 years ago...it connects to your computer via USB and essentially makes your old hard drive an external drive. In fact, whenever I get rid of a computer, I harvest out the old hard drive...no worries about identity theft off an old hard drive if its sitting on my shelf!
Check that...l looked it up myself and they've replaced it with another item, which I'm sure is good. Its about $35, but still on the inexpensive side compared to losing all that information forever.
Good luck! BTW...WalMart, where I originally bought my Acer Aspire 7736z-4088....looks like they have an updated version on Rollback to $389 from $458.
