Re: Laptop not working
 

well it's picking up the HDD and the ram so they look ok ,still worth doing a chkdisk though just to see if it's being read ok

Re: Laptop not working
 

Start up repair is part of the OS not the recovery partition

Have you tried F10 F11 or alt F10 alt F11 at post? also if you get a full screen logo press the tab key it might tell you there if any different

Re: Laptop not working
 

When i do startup repair from the Windows 7 CD, it hangs on the Windows 7 screen, says nothing with just the arrow there.

Dell Studio XPS 16

If i select start windows normally, the windows boot screen will load, then a blue screen comes up for about half a second i barely see it, then it boots again and has the options start up repair(recommended) and start windows normally.

Re: Laptop not working
 

ok tryF8 possibly even CTRL F11 at post bit sketchy on Dells but they should have recovery then just do a factory restore

Re: Laptop not working
 

CTRL F11 it just beeps, with F8 the advanced boot options comes up, i tried the repair your comuter option from that which does not help.

Re: Laptop not working
 

ok I think its press F8 at boot select advanced boot options then repair you computer

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...&isLegacy=true

---------- Post added at 23:42 ---------- Previous post was at 23:42 ----------

you log in then select Dell Factory Image Restore

Re: Laptop not working
 

i tried that and nothing about dell factory came up.

After selecting Repair your computer it says Windows is loading files... then hangs on that for a few minutes afterwards the windows 7 background comes up with nothing on the screen except the mouse arrow and stays like that, i left it for an hour before and nothing, no disk activity either.

Re: Laptop not working
 

the lack of anything about Dell isnt good what your seeing is the recovery stuff available within the OS

did you try the other options ? there should be a recovery on the machine

---------- Post added at 23:55 ---------- Previous post was at 23:53 ----------

are you pressing F8 as soon as the pc boots?

Re: Laptop not working
 

on the dells now you need to have created a recovery CD from within windows first. You could try pressing F12 and looking for "Diagnostics" and running those they should tell you if the hardware is OK.

Press F12 as soon as the PC comes on (at the dell screen) a few times

Re: Laptop not working
 

im pressing F8 on (and just after) the Dell Bios screen comes up.

From the other options i tried Safe Mode which doesn't work, directory services restore mode debugging mode and last known good configuration.

There are other options also: enable boot logging, enable low-resolution video, disable automatic restart on system failure and disable driver signature enforcement.

Re: Laptop not working
 

you could try "disable automatic restart" as that will stop the machine rebooting so you can copy down the blue screen error code.

Re: Laptop not working
 

After doing Disognostics it says

Error Code 0146
Msg: Error code 2000-0146
Msg: Hard Drive 0 - self test log contains previous errors

now its continuing with the tests

Re: Laptop not working
 

you got any warranty left?

---------- Post added at 00:07 ---------- Previous post was at 00:06 ----------

its deffo failing hdd

Re: Laptop not working
 

Yep error 0146 is failing HDD, if its under warranty you'll have to send it away to dell, if its not, its cheap enough to buy a HDD :) unfortunately it will be likely your data won't be recoverable...

Re: Laptop not working
 

well i had warranty (2 years) on my old XPS laptop which stopped working, they replaced the laptop in October with this Studio XPS and its been nothing but problems. Would the warranty transfer over?