Power down your computer if not already powered down and wait at least 10 seconds before powering it back up. Once you have made the diagnostics CD/DVD or USB stick insert the CD/DVD or plug the USB stick into your problem system. Select Create a Bootable CD or Install to a USB Flash Drive. Once the files extract navigate to this folder and run the DDDP program (if it doesn’t automatically run) To run the diagnostics on such systems please download the following file (on a working system) A1394A0. These extended tests can instead be run off a CD or a USB (this USB must be <2 GB and really old systems before 2006 won’t boot from a USB). In such a case you will get an error message saying the system can’t boot to the diagnostics utility. Also if the hard drive is damaged the extended tests will also be unable to run. Note many older systems had a diagnostics partition on the hard drive, however by now this partition has likely been removed by reinstallation of the Operating System. This Guide is for hardware manufactured before 2010 which has now reached end of support. For newer systems (~2010 or later) the diagnostics are all incorporated into the UEFI BIOS (or late Legacy BIOS) of the motherboard for more details see here. For older systems (~ before 2010) the extended diagnostics were contained on a diagnostics partition on the hard drive which could be removed during manual installation or inaccessible if the hard drive failed thus it is recommended to make a diagnostics bootable USB or CD.

Dell hard drive diagnostics