dell xps 17 windows will not boot

[lemonzap]

My laptop will no longer boot windows 7. When I turn it on the dell logo is displayed and tge loading bar completes. Then there is a black screen with a white cursor briefly at the top left then black forever. The fans are still running. I can not get to the boot menu by pressing f8 or f11 however I can get to the boot options by pressing f12. I had a ubuntu diak lying around so I put that in and booted from the disk. I was not able to access the drive that winows is installed on. When trying it told me it couldnt mount it because windows was hibernated. I deleted the hiberfile and now I can access the drive and everything on it but windows still will not boot. I suspect I just need to repair my windows installation but I don't have a windows repair disk. I figure there may be a way to fix windows through ubuntu or download the contents of a windows repair disk onto a flashdrive and use that to boot and repair. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[fireberd]

Dell has restore options available via F8 at power on. Depending on what you've done with the hard drive these recovery options may or may not be available. If they are, one of them is PC Restore that will restore the PC to the original factory condition (and no discs are needed).

 

[lemonzap]

I mentioned in my post that I can't access the f8 menu because the error happens before the ability to press f8. Also I ran the diognostic from the f12 menu and it gave me an error. Error code 2000-0142 and did some beeping.

 

[fireberd]

That error code is "drive self test failed". The beep code can also help. How many beeps do you get?

 

[lemonzap]

The same number of beeps as the error code. 5 beeps that go up in tone then back down, 3 times. Then 1 beep 4 beeps 2 beeps.

 

[fireberd]

5 beeps (at power on) is CMOS battery failure. I have several Dell diagnostic beep and error code documents but nothing for beeps after running diagnostics. (I used to work the Dell forums and reason I have the code lists).

At best you are going to have to do a complete reinstall. At worst, the drive will have to be replaced.

Dell had a procedure to get a OS disc, not sure if that procedure is still in effect as its been a couple of years since I last saw that.

Posting on the Dell forum may get you more info on that. Laptop - Dell Community

 

[lemonzap]

I doubt ill need to replace the drive since I can use and access the drive from linux. I have no beeps on startup though. Just beeps on the diagnostic which mimic the error code so I dont think they provide any extra info. I think may be able to get away with an installation repair but I dont have the repair disk. If you know of a place I could download it I could burn it to a cd or put it on a flash drive to try it out.

 

[fireberd]

See this Windows 7 forum thread
http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/182947-win7-repair-disk-download.html