Dell Inspiron lid was slammed shut and now when it is turned on, it won't load.

Hold down the ON/OFF button for several seconds until it shuts off.

It' most likely that your hard disk drive is defective. Try to boot from a CD\DVD disc, if it does, you have a problem with your hard drive.

open control panel and go to power options. you should see "choose what to do when you shut the lid" click it and choose.

Hold down the power button for 10 seconds. That will hard-shut the PC. Once that is done, fire it back up, and try again. Somethimes, windows will act goofy shutting down. Especially Vista when it is left on too long without shutting it down.

You have to replace the lid switch.

Go to power settings, and change the what to do when I close my lid to either HIBERNATE or SHUTDOWN
http://www.ehow.com/how_4864887_change-happens-close-laptop-lid.html

you most likely damaged the LCD or dislodged the cables from system board to the LCD. Also check for a small button or "nub" near the base of the screen, is it stuck or broken? this turns off the screen when lid is closed, slamming may have got it stuck.

if you have an external monitor. shut off the laptop, connect the video cable from external monitor and turn on laptop...do you get video?

if yes, your LCD is damaged and needs service. if no, you have done far more damage and need to have the whole thing diagnosed at a service center.

please this could be due to boot files. repair your os to replace the corrupted files using the installation CD

Honestly even if you were to get lucky and be able to get vista back onto the laptop, your going to get even more bad sectors quickly cause the hard drive is going bad.

Get a new hard drive put in there and then get the laptop restored back to factory defaults.

The same thing happened here. It turned out to be the lid switch. It can be accessed by taking off the back plate (behind the controls) by unscrewing three screws and two screw bolts -simple.

I removed the lid switch and tested it with an ohm meter - instructions are on this site. You should have continuity across machine-motor, as well as across machine -line. (These are labeled on the switch).

If you don't have a meter and you still want to see if that's the problem, after you have removed the lid switch, short the machine and line connectors, (you'll see these labeled on the lid switch so you'll be able to figure out which wires go with what) as well as shorting the machine and motor connectors. Both of these need to be shorted. That bypasses the switch and will activate the motor and controls.

That's what I did to confirm that it was all a "lid switch " problem. I ordered a lid switch from this site for $24.95 for the repair, and will use the "shorting process" to do a couple of loads of wash as I wait three days to get the switch. Good luck.