Dell Vostro 3500 won't even start!

My Dell Vostro 3500, purchased in 2010, won't start. It's been almost 4 weeks and nothing. It's frustrating since it wasn't cheap at all! . I press the start button and nothing...I tried the pressing the button for 30 seconds trick and nothing. This happened after my hard drive crashed, apparently. When it did at least start it showed the following message:

"Windows has encounter a problem communicating with a device connected to your computer.

This error can be caused by unplugging a removable storage device such as an external USB drive while the device is in use, or by faulty hardware such as a hard drive or CD-ROM drive that is failing. Make sure any removable storage is properly connected and then restart your computer

If yo continue to receive this error message, contact the hardware manufacturer.

File: \Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc00000e9
Info: An unexpected I/O error has occurred. We run diagnosis CDs on it and they all agreed it was a hard drive problem."

What do you think the problem could be? I haven't had a good experience with Dell. I bought this laptop online and after heating up like crazy, a guy from Dell came to my home and replaced the motherboard...Now, almost 3 years later, it won't even start. My guarantee, of course, has expired.
Thanks!

 

Try starting it without the hard drive? If you're not getting any response at all, though, I would totally not be surprised if the motherboard died. All the Vostros after the first gen have been really cheaply made.