Dell that won't boot, anybody help?

indierocker85

Hi

I have a Dell Insprion 910 and I cannot get into windows

When I try and go into Windows it says the following

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.1 (build 082)
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

For Realtek RTL8101E/8102E PCI-E Ethernet Controller v1.08 (080408)
PXE-E61: Media test failure, Check cable
PXE-M0F: Existing PXE ROM.
Operating system not found

Any help is HUGELY appreciated.

Thank you so much
Indie

closed

It's trying to boot from the network, so either the hard disk is faulty, or bios settings relating to disk/boot incorrect. Is the hard disk visible in the bios screen?

Is this the same hard disk that has been accidentally formatted?

debitcardmayhem

Looks like its set to boot from the network, go into the bios / setup
F2/Delete(it should say on the Dell splash screen) as soon as you switch on, Move to the Boot header and select the HDD (hard disk drive) .

Edit: beaten by closed (not surprising how slick his systems are :cool:

indierocker85

closed wrote: »

It's trying to boot from the network, so either the hard disk is faulty, or bios settings relating to disk/boot incorrect. Is the hard disk visible in the bios screen?

Is this the same hard disk that has been accidentally formatted?

No.............

indierocker85

OK in the bios, how do I check if this hdd is working or picked up/ It is an SSD drive you see and I am not sure where to look for these ones.

davb

closed wrote: »

Is this the same hard disk that has been accidentally formatted?

Or was it in the same PC as an additional disk? Depending on configuration, reformatting a disk could cause the partitions to be renumbered, and stop the OS from booting.

davb

indierocker85 wrote: »

OK in the bios, how do I check if this hdd is working or picked up/ It is an SSD drive you see and I am not sure where to look for these ones.

A quick check would be to press F12 on boot, which should display all the available boot devices.
After that, in the BIOS look for something like boot order, it should be listed there.

indierocker85

fixed hdd = none.

when i selecte boot menu and press enter to load from hard drive i get the same error

indierocker85

No it wasn't in NAY other system. It is a solid state drive from a mini notebook.

Hammyman

Its possible an ill one then if the BIOS isn't detecting it.

davb

Ok, assuming that Windows used to boot on this PC with the drive in question, and nothing has changed.
Firstly check that there are no CD's inserted, or USB devices such as flash drives plugged in.

After that, if nothing is showing in the BIOS, then it's not looking too good. You could try reseating the drive connections, but remove the laptop power lead and the battery first. Next, possibly download a diagnostic boot CD from the drive manufacturers website, eg Seagate, Hitachi etc, but if the BIOS doesn't see it, that won't help.
The other option is to remove the drive, fit it into an external caddy, and connect to another PC - to either test and/or try to recover data.