Windows Repair Errors with Dell Inspiron 15R

[Cykoth]

I'm working on a friend's Dell laptop that never gets past the Windows startup screen. I asked her if she installed any new software or drivers and of course she didn't know. My feeling is that the master boot record has become corrupted, but I can't even get to safe mode command prompt. When you press F8 at boot up and make the selection, the basic drivers start to load but halt at disk.sys or classpnp.sys. I looked up these errors online, and it seems the consensus is to use the bootrec.exe /FixMBR command, or some flavor of such. But I can't even get that far! I've changed the Boot Order in BIOS so that an Installation DVD will take precedence, but I never get to the windows installation screen. It continues to try to boot from the hard drive and the cycle starts all over. I do have a copy of Acronis Backup 2009, I was able to have it boot, but I didn't have any options to open a command prompt. If this was a desktop, I'd simply open it up and install the drive in a good computer I have and work on it. But it's a brand new Dell Laptop and I don't want to void any warrenties. I haven't called Dell yet because I figured they would be useless, or not cover anything because it's not hardware.

Any suggestions would be most welcome! The laptop is configured with Win 7 X64 Home Premium. I have personal install disks of Vista Ultimate, Win 7 X64 Ultimate, and Win 7 X64 Home Premium.

Cykoth

 

[fireberd]

Dell's have a restore partition, accessed by F8 at Power On. This will allow to repair and/or completely restore the PC to the original factory condition.

 

[gregrocker]

Dell has a diagnostics partition which also can be booted to check out the hardware using the key given on first screen; Pre-Boot System Assessment (PSA) Diagnostics and Error Codes For Dell Computers | Dell

If it won't boot then you can download diagnostics to write to bootable flash stick here: Dell DIagnostics downoad

You can also work through these step for Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot
while will try everything possible to start the install, then if not show you how to copy out stranded files and run Factory Recovery or the superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

Dell Restoring Your Computer´s Software to the Factory Settings

 

[Cykoth]

Thanks for the information. I actually just got off the phone with Dell support and was pleasantly surprised! Very nice person, we tried everything and nothing worked. Pressing the Fn key before power on gets you into the Pre-Boot menu. Ran all those tests and of COURSE everything was fine. Tried to access the Recovery Partition and NO DICE. It just won't get past the Windows Loading Files screen when you select Repair. So....the nice Dell man is having to set a pre-loaded USB drive with a Recovery image on it. I'm supposed to get it in two days, which is really quick I feel.


I have no idea what buggered up the Boot partition of this laptop but I hope it's not catching......



Cyk

 

[fireberd]

If the boot partition has been changed or an OS has been installed from discs, that invalidates the Dell recovery partition.