It refused to boot. Just like before, it would go past the POST screen and then display a blank screen with a blinking cursor. This is a drive that booted just fine for a week.
Sigh. I think I'm going to have to go through the annoyance of doing a bare-metal installation of WinXP on that drive simply so that the next time I deal with Dell -- which won't be until I get back to the Bay Area, I expect -- I can tell them, "Yes, I did that." Whether it will actually solve the problem, I tend to doubt.
For now, it adds to my inconvenience because one of the reasons I brought it was so I could use Skype for work-related calls while still connected to the company network through VPN on the main machine. (My company's computer network blocks Skype and other internet telephony services, you see.)