Hello Sean, and welcome to Seven Forums.
See if you may be able to use either step in OPTION ONE of the tutorial below to open a command prompt at boot to then be able to do the tutorial on the first page.
Command Prompt at Startup
Hope this helps, :)
Shawn
Hi! Last week I got my family's computer working again with these instructions, but now it's happened again and it doesn't work :/ The first time, when I clicked normal startup it reached the logo part, but now when I click it it goes directly to startup repair, which obviously doesn't work. I also tried fixboot, fixmbr, rebuildbcd and chkdsk but nothing, and the two restore points end up in error... Any ideas?
Is your repair disc working? Mine gave me many errors so I created one to replace the defective one. But after many attempts and realizing that my files were lost (temporarily), I removed the Hard Drive and connected it to another PC, used multiple recovery programs to recover more than 50% of the lost files and restoring the Laptop to factory new, by using the DVDs I created the first time I configured the Laptop. If you have the DVDs to restore the system to Factory New and you have all your files safe and sound, just Nuke it with the DVD created for Factory new. Is this Windows 7 or 8?
Hi, thanks for the response. It's Windows 7. I created a repair disk too last week since the options included wasn't working and I tried it the first time we had this problem, but again, it didn't work. I didn't check it this time so I'll do it now, though I don't have much hope it will work, but anyway. In this case, luckily the files don't seem to be damaged. I can see everything is there through the notepad and also through a windows xp portable I downloaded (which by the way doesn't let me do much)
I'll also add this: the last one to use that computer was my brother and he says that he saw something related to Microsoft Windows Defender (and maybe DirectX?, he doesn't remember..) Well the thing is that the last checkpoint was made last night automatically and it's named Windows Defender Checkpoint. So maybe something related to a virus or some kind of malware? I tried to run Malwarebytes Anti-malware through that WXP portable but it doesn't let me...)
Did you try to use the Windows 7 media instead of the repair disk? Booting from it will give the option of either installing windows or a repair. Choosing repair will send you to multiple options, like the simple repair start up problems and then on. Then you have the system restore option there too. But if you already tried all this, then I'm wasting your time.
There are two options I could try but one of them is too expensive. The cheapest one is to take out the HD, connect it to another PC (USB enclosure) and try the Disk Error Checking tool. Checkmark both Automatically Fix File System Errors and Scan and Recover bad sectors. The expensive one is to have another drive, same capacity or more, and try to clone the troublesome one. I did that once with a Windows XP system (Dell) that went on a loop when starting up (Windows XP Logo). Cloning the drive worked, I've no idea if the cloning process skipped the bad sectors but it worked. But don't waste money in buying another HD. I only suggest this option if you already have one, just in case. For cloning, I used the Acronis version that Western Digital let you download for free. I'm not sure if either the Source or the Target disk need to be Western Digital but it's just an idea (crazy one).
ADDENDUM
The cloning was pure luck because the original plan was to buy the HD to replace the one with the XP Logo Startup loop. Since it was a Dell, we had the Restoration CD to use with the new HD. The cloning was just an experiment I did to see if I got the same results (startup Loop) like with the old one. Surprisingly, the system booted normally so I didn't need to go through the tiresome re-installation process.
Again, if you happen to have an extra HD, same capacity (or more) as the "defective" one, try the experiment.
Last edited by skunky62; 19 Oct 2013 at 13:07.
Sorry, I just arrive home so I couldn't reply earlier. At the end my dad decided to take the cpu to a pc repairman this morning. Luckily we could do some backups of a few important personal files that were stored in the main partition (which I guess will be formatted) through the xp portable I had downloaded. Anyway, thanks skunky62 for taking time and try to help :)
This seems perfect for my predicament, all except for the fact that when I select Startup Repair from he booting menu, it goes straight to a black screen, F8 doesn't work either.
Hello everyone!
This evening, my computer forcibly restarted, and after fussing with it, I was finally able to get to the command prompt. I followed all of the steps provided, yet I was unable to get the computer to boot up normally. In addition, I tried a System Restore which was "successful," though after it was finished, startup repair booted up for five seconds and then claimed that it couldn't do anything to solve the problem. Has anyone else experienced this sort of problem? If any of you have suggestions/tips, they would be much appreciated. Thanks for your time and effort. :) (I'm doing this on a Dell Inspiron N7010 with Windows 7 if that makes any difference.)
Almost. Did you try all the System Restore shown? Why not try an earlier one until you exhaust them all? If that doesn't work, I'm sure Dell gave you the system with a restoration DVD. Go for it, after saving the Data to another PC or drive. My hellish experience, you can see all my posts from late last year, with Dell Inspiron was ridiculous. That was the first model where you couldn't remove the HD so easily. You needed a Masters Degree in Computer Engineering to take out the stupid HD.
Quote