Dell laptop problems

stevetiler

stevetiler

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Steve
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Hi all,
so my sis in law bought her laptop round for me to "look at", on startup (win7) all we get is the screen in the picture.
It just goes on and on ! Is it toast?
ThanksIMG_2342.JPG
 
You could try restarting it in Safe mode and then go to system restore.
 
Are you sure?

I'm not doubting your abilities, it's just that sometimes it can be a bit difficult to get it into Safe mode. :)
 
It's fine to doubt my abilities!!
Press F8 continuously on startup?
 
Is there anything on the laptop that your sister in law cannot afford to/or does not want to lose?

If not, and if there is no restore disk, then somewhere in the manual there will be a guide to accessing the system recovery. If I recall correctly it used to be either pressing F11, or Ctrl and F11, while booting up, but this is from some years ago.

If the laptop has important data then get a copy of Linux on a bootable CD/DVD. Put the copy of Linux in the DVD drive and bootup, at least then the files can be acessed and copied elsewhere.

Dave
 
Hum,
Assuming a sata disk, have you a USB to Sata connector?

I'd suggest it's either a corrupted update (i.e. shutdown/rebooted whilst updating) or depending on age of laptop a disk issue.

At this point I'd probably get a new disk, SSD's are cheap and reinstall with a clean OS (provided you have software) and get the data off the original offline.
 
I'd boot if off a Linux live CD (e.g. Ubuntu), attach an external hard disk and recovery what data you can.
Then reboot it from the recovery partition, reinstall, apply Windows Updates etc. - if you tell us what model of laptop it is, we can probably tell you what magical key combination to press.
There's also probably a key combination that will start the Dell Diagnostic Utility which will run through a suite of tests to rule out common detectable hardware problems.
 
afasoas said:
I'd boot if off a Linux live CD (e.g. Ubuntu), attach an external hard disk and recovery what data you can.
Then reboot it from the recovery partition, reinstall, apply Windows Updates etc. - if you tell us what model of laptop it is, we can probably tell you what magical key combination to press.
There's also probably a key combination that will start the Dell Diagnostic Utility which will run through a suite of tests to rule out common detectable hardware problems.
Click to expand...

Its a Dell Inspiron N5030
 
So I took the HDD out of the laptop and put it in a caddy and plugged into my desktop, managed to transfer some documents and other bits. The HDD was painfully slow to respond- sometimes would't spin at all !
The recovery partition was showing as empty so I guess there was nothing to recover from.
So I think the laprtop is going to be replaced - some good deals around at the moment!

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread - great advice as always

Steve
 
The recovery partition might look empty to the OS you are inspecting it with. That doesn't mean it is empty!
Has it got a OEM license key stuck to the underside of it?
 
stevetiler said:
So I took the HDD out of the laptop and put it in a caddy and plugged into my desktop, managed to transfer some documents and other bits. The HDD was painfully slow to respond- sometimes would't spin at all !
The recovery partition was showing as empty so I guess there was nothing to recover from.
So I think the laprtop is going to be replaced - some good deals around at the moment!

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread - great advice as always

Steve
Click to expand...

Hard drive is dying. I think they used to ship those with a naff 5400rpm disk so a 250Gb SSD would make a difference and is really cheap these days.
 
Anyone know if Format MBR still works in Win 7, for a corrupt master boot record, some viruses attacked that a while ago.

Pete
 
In a usb caddy the hard drive was slow to respond and sometimes wouldnt spin. I honestly dont think it's worth the recovery.
 
Mikesphotaes said:
Post 14 tells you that.
Click to expand...

Tried that but it doesn't work! Thanks though

Byker28i said:
In a usb caddy the hard drive was slow to respond and sometimes wouldnt spin. I honestly dont think it's worth the recovery
Click to expand...

Yes I think you're dead right!
Update- managed to get all data off the hdd and Sis-in law is off to PC World today for a new laptop!! Thanks again to all who contributed to this :ty:
 
What she doing with the old one. Possibly still worth £100 without hard drive depending on spec as someone will drop a hard drive in it and install an OS.
Or do it and keep it for the kids?
 
stevetiler said:
Hi all,
so my sis in law bought her laptop round for me to "look at", on startup (win7) all we get is the screen in the picture.
It just goes on and on ! Is it toast?
ThanksView attachment 64716
Click to expand...
I had the same problem. I wrote this file to disc on my other laptop. switched brocken computer on and inserted the disc. The disc repaired the startup and it has started up ever since. This file was a repair file for a dodgy update.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=38435
 
landwomble said:
That isn't going to fix a dead hard drive though
Click to expand...
I posted this after reading the first few posts as I thought it would help. I missed the post about the dead hard drive hence my post. It is a fact that a recent update corrupted the startup on windows7 and Microsoft put the fix on my link. When it happened to me a friend (a computer geek) told me my desktop was goosed. I tried this fix and it worked, no problems now. I pass this info on as there may be others that are binning perfectly good win7 computers without knowing about the fix. In future though I will read all posts before making a contribution.:facepalm:
 
Byker28i said:
What she doing with the old one. Possibly still worth £100 without hard drive depending on spec as someone will drop a hard drive in it and install an OS.
Or do it and keep it for the kids?
Click to expand...
Yes good idea!
 
It might run slow if the caddy is old or trying to send data across an older USB port.
 
What I'd do is this. Get a new HD, they're cheap enough these days.

On the bottom of the laptop should be the Windows 7 product key. Download an OEM copy of Win7, install it on the new drive and use your key.

With that done, plug your old drive back in and hopefully you'll be able to access it and get anything you want off it.

Then format it and run diagnostics. If it's ok then keep it as a storage drive.

You can download OEM Windows from here : http://www.w7forums.com/threads/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads.12325/

Info here on creating a bootable usb drive : http://www.poweriso.com/tutorials/how-to-make-win7-bootable-usb-drive.htm

Hope that helps a little?
 
stevetiler said:
I'm thinking the HDD isn't dead as I can use it in the caddy! Although it does run slow but that could be the caddy maybe?
Click to expand...

Dead or dying HDDs generally make a clicking noise as they're spinning
 
Never worth keeping a HDD that you have doubts about - if you use it as a system disc and it falls over then you've lost everything since your last backup. And if you use it as a backup & it dies then you risk losing everything.

Never worth keeping it.
 
I've got a USB3 external HDD here that it just so happens I benchmarked t'other day.
I managed an eye watering 30 M/s transfer speed. Which is pretty terrible. No known issues with the disk.
 
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