Is this a hard drive issue?

update on this:

Got new WD IDE drive. Ghosted the owners drive over to it. The PC is not detecting it as bootable (Dell gives "strike F1 to retry, F2 to enter setup", even though Windows is on it.

This system successfully boots off a Windows XP cd, which is on the secondary IDE channel. The HD dpes the same thing when I put it on there.

Also passes Dell IDE diagnostics. And both drives are picked up in the BIOS.

Fixboot or Fixmbr (can't remember which one) always says "there appears to be a non-standard...." I can't remember the exact wording. But when press Y to write a new boot sector, it reports to work. It will give the same message if I try the command again.

Is there something else I can try?

Install windows from scratch on the new drive and see if it works properly then... but I thought you had concluded that the primary ide controller is faulty?