If you've had it less than a year it should still be under warranty, right?
I just had to call Dell support for my parents, they had a HD failure on their 3 year old computer. They had the extended warranty and fixing it was pretty easy - the tech support guy walked us through it.
I've also chatted with Dell tech support and they can take over your computer and fix it for you...maybe give the chat a try?
good luck!