Solved Unable to restore PC after Formatting with Wipe Drive 8

[xSpaceghostx]

I ordered wipe drive from whitecanyon website to format my drive and reinstall my OS i own a dell xps 8500 PC which i game on, so after the wipe finished i rebooted as instructed only to discover i could not boot into bios to set my usb drive so i could reinstall windows, so i contacted white canyon and they told me the software wipes the drive entirely, had i known this i would have not used wipe drive, i can get the prompt to enter bios but cant access at all no matter what, i have it set to boot from CD/DVD but nothing reads i think the bios and all may have been wiped, a rep from live chat told me that i would need a full windows installation disc to fix the PC, but i am having doubts, if the drive has been completely wiped, how will any disc be read?

 

[samuria]

Welcome to the forum. Wiping the drive has nothing to do with the BIOS if the drive has been wiped a new partition and format will be needed which will be done by Windows on install. You should be able with Dell to select the boot device on start. Removing the CMOS and power for two mins may help

 

[xSpaceghostx]

I tried various ISO files from microsoft website, none has worked yet, i have tried DVDs and Flash drives and nothing, i have no clue what to do from here..

 

[RolandJS]

How old might the CMOS battery be? I'm guessing maybe it's time to replace the CMOS battery?

 

[mitchell65]

I've just read through this thread again!
xSpaceghostx:
1. What problem were you having that made you decide to re-install Windows?
2. When you say "i can get the prompt to enter bios". What exactly do you see on your screen when you switch on?
3. Where did you download the ISO file from?

 

[AddRAM]

Are you hitting F2 or DEL when you 1st turn on the PC to get into the Bios ? Disconnect the hard drive/s, can you get into the Bios ?

It would have been simpler and free if you had just used the clean all command with Diskpart.

Also, there is no reason to set your usb drive as 1st in the boot order and you should not try to, just use the boot menu (F8) to choose the usb stick 1 time, that`s it.

As stated, the Bios has nothing to do with the hard drive, the dvd drive should read the install disc just fine.

Did you create all your install dvd`s/usb sticks yourself ?

Maybe you didn`t create them correctly, explain how you created them.

 

[xSpaceghostx]

I have one flash drive i got from dell when the PC was under warranty and i got 2 discs also, one with the operating system and one with drivers and utilities, none of it works at all, its like my dvd drive isnt reading, im not sure what this wipe drive CD has done but it seems to have deleted all the important files needed to make my PC run, when i power on the system i see a brief flash as if the drive is starting to read but then stops, if i hit the spacebar i get a blue bar that starts loading then F12 boot options appears in the top right corner but i cannot access bios, im on laptop talking with you guys but my desktop is the system that i seemingly wiped to the point of no recovery, the ISO images im trying to use are from microsoft.com and were made with the windows USB/DVD tool..my PC moves no further than the Dell logo

 

[redoak]

I have one flash drive i got from dell when the PC was under warranty and i got 2 discs also, one with the operating system and one with drivers and utilities, none of it works at all, its like my dvd drive isnt reading, im not sure what this wipe drive CD has done but it seems to have deleted all the important files needed to make my PC run, when i power on the system i see a brief flash as if the drive is starting to read but then stops, if i hit the spacebar i get a blue bar that starts loading then F12 boot options appears in the top right corner but i cannot access bios, im on laptop talking with you guys but my desktop is the system that i seemingly wiped to the point of no recovery, the ISO images im trying to use are from microsoft.com and were made with the windows USB/DVD tool..my PC moves no further than the Dell logo

If you have proper bootable installation media, there are no 'important files needed to make your PC run' that could be deleted from your drive. The BIOS just hands off to the bootable media, and you install the 'important files needed to make your PC run'. Something else is going on.

If you can't boot from proper bootable media you are either not hitting the right key to bring up the menu of bootable devices (on HP computers, e.g., that tends to be ESC, and sometimes you have to tap it several times. I don't know about Dell.), or your bootable media is no good (though it would tell you that). There is nothing your Wipe software could have done, short of maliciously flashing your BIOS, which I seriously doubt it did. After the POST, all your BIOS really does is hand off to the boot code of the selected device. Something else is going on for sure.

 

[xSpaceghostx]

Hmmm well far as i know for Dell the only key to access BIOS is F12, maybe im not doing this right, can someone direct me to where i can get proper bootable media? i would greatly appreciate it..since everything im making seems to fail.

 

[redoak]

Hmmm well far as i know for Dell the only key to access BIOS is F12, maybe im not doing this right, can someone direct me to where i can get proper bootable media? i would greatly appreciate it..since everything im making seems to fail.

You do not want to access the BIOS - what you want to do is bring up a menu of boot devices. Typically you press a certain key, and you can then select among your hard drive, your CD/DVD drive, a plugged-in USB device, an external hard drive, etc., etc. Perhaps someone who knows Dell computers can provide the key-press you need.

You need a) the particular key-press that does this, and b) a bootable CD/DVD, or USB stick, which I thought you already had.

 

[xSpaceghostx]

Yes i have my flash drive, so all i need is a certain key press you say? would you happen to know the key press?

 

[redoak]

Presumably you had to boot a CD or something in order to run the Wipe software. How did you do that?

 

[redoak]

Yes i have my flash drive, so all i need is a certain key press you say? would you happen to know the key press?

As I said in my post, no - I don't do Dell. Do some Googling for godz sake, or maybe someone will chime in here.

 

[xSpaceghostx]

i googled it and it says F11 or F12 for dell neither worked so i will check other keys

 

[redoak]

i googled it and it says F11 or F12 for dell neither worked so i will check other keys

How did you boot whatever you used to wipe your drive?

 

[xSpaceghostx]

I went in BIOS using F12 and set my PC to boot from DVD Drive and used Wipe Drive 8, after wipe was finished F12 no longer responds when i press it, im on the phone with a dell rep and he tells me that my motherboard may have gone bad..

 

[redoak]

I went in BIOS using F12 and set my PC to boot from DVD Drive and used Wipe Drive 8, after wipe was finished F12 no longer responds when i press it, im on the phone with a dell rep and he tells me that my motherboard may have gone bad..

Yes, alas, I was coming around to thinking you had a hardware issue. Good luck - hope you get to the bottom of it...

 

[RolandJS]

Agreed, WipeDesk had not nothing to do with BIOS and/or motherboard failure; looks like two concurrent causes leading to a series of effects, problems. End-user has a two-front war going on.

 

[xSpaceghostx]

Spoke with a tech support rep from white canyon the other day and they told me my mobo isnt dead, i simply need get a full installation disc to reinstall windows, so how would i be able to tell if my motherboard is dead or damaged?

 

[redoak]

Spoke with a tech support rep from white canyon the other day and they told me my mobo isnt dead, i simply need get a full installation disc to reinstall windows, so how would i be able to tell if my motherboard is dead or damaged?

If you can't even manage to bring up the menu that allows you to select the boot device, a full installation disc of windows or anything else is not going to help you. I thought you already had some bootable media? Did the White Canyon people give any reason for their diagnosis?

I think you should simply bring your computer to a local shop and have them look at it. We're just going around in circles here...