Dell Inspiron 8600 Cant Get Into Windows XP

michele16

Browntoa wrote: »

reboot, when you see the Dell splash screen at bootup, then Press CTRL + F11.

see if you have a recovery partition

Hiya. Tried this as soon as I got up this morning. Did nothing just went into safe mode, again, where nothing else seems to happen.

michele16

Browntoa wrote: »

no , think its destructive only (lose all their data)

not sure these have restore though

other option is to buy a DELL Xp CD from ebay (must be a Dell cd...) and do a repair

Thanks. If all else fails wil look on ebay for one of those.

michele16

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Michele you could do with an Xp repair disc , when I get hold of my Home Pc I will see if I can find a link to one. However it may to try restarting the lappy with nothing i.e. USB keys, SD cards or anything external to it, including CDs/DVD's. Also did you get any help with the Dell Diagnostics (rather than the Restore partition) I think it may be a possible it could be a disk error but that is speculation of course.

Haven't really looked at the Dell Diagnostics, will have a look see if I can fnd anything to be of help. Thanks.

michele16

dispossessed wrote: »

One of the Boot Options should be to start a "Command Prompt". This often works where/when Safe Mode fails.

If you have this option select it and then type "chkdsk" (without quotes) and press enter.

Trevor

"Command Prompt" hasnt appeared. Will check again see if I can find it. But it doesn't appear on the first "safe mode" screen that appears. Thanks though

macman

Will it actually boot to the Windows Desktop in Safe Mode? Not clear from your post when you say it will 'but nothing seems to be working?
If you can get to Safe Mode then can you try a System Restore from there?

dispossessed

If you haven't got a "Recovery Console" CD then it might be worth your while downloading the "Ultimate Boot CD" and booting directly from that. It is a very useful collection of tools and (IMHO) easy enough to use.

One point - you will need a utility (on another computer presumably !) to burn files that are in ISO format. Burn CDCC will do the task (it's free).

Trevor

dispossessed

Further to my previous advice one further thing occured to me. Actually I don't know why I didn't suggest this in the first instance as it is usually the first thing I check on a non-booting laptop.

It is just possible that the R.A.M (i.e. memory) has come unseated. Laptops do, by their very nature, tend to get moved about and, occasionally dropped, and this can be sufficient to unseat the memory.

In theory the clips that hold it in place should not allow this to happen - but it can and it does, particularly if not installed correctly in the first instance.

Although many laptops have a fair chunk of RAM soldered directly to the motherboard incorrect seating of "Removable RAM" can create a problem at boot-up time as the system tries to allocate memory.

OK - that's enough of the theory !

The fix is easy enough.

Turn off the power to the laptop first !

Underneath your laptop there will be a plastic cover usually held in place by a single cross head screw. Undo the screw and remove the RAM and replace it (removing first will slightly clean any the teminals). You will feel a distinct "Click" as it seats. It should look like this.

Then reboot.

Sorry that this has been a somewhat long post.

Trevor

michele16

macman wrote: »

Will it actually boot to the Windows Desktop in Safe Mode? Not clear from your post when you say it will 'but nothing seems to be working?
If you can get to Safe Mode then can you try a System Restore from there?

No it will not boot to the desktop. All it seems to do is go to safe mode everytime. No matter what option you click in safemode the screen stays the same.:(

michele16

dispossessed wrote: »

Further to my previous advice one further thing occured to me. Actually I don't know why I didn't suggest this in the first instance as it is usually the first thing I check on a non-booting laptop.

It is just possible that the R.A.M (i.e. memory) has come unseated. Laptops do, by their very nature, tend to get moved about and, occasionally dropped, and this can be sufficient to unseat the memory.

In theory the clips that hold it in place should not allow this to happen - but it can and it does, particularly if not installed correctly in the first instance.

Although many laptops have a fair chunk of RAM soldered directly to the motherboard incorrect seating of "Removable RAM" can create a problem at boot-up time as the system tries to allocate memory.

OK - that's enough of the theory !

The fix is easy enough.

Turn off the power to the laptop first !

Underneath your laptop there will be a plastic cover usually held in place by a single cross head screw. Undo the screw and remove the RAM and replace it (removing first will slightly clean any the teminals). You will feel a distinct "Click" as it seats. It should look like this.

Then reboot.

Sorry that this has been a somewhat long post.

Trevor

Thanks Trevor. Tried that, no removal RAM. Got rid of some dust though!

Laz123

If you can do anything in safemode press the MS button + Pause/Break, chose Hardware then chose Device manager and see if there's any yellows. Sometimes a driver goes awol and needs replacing.