Laptop seriously ill :(

bungalow_bill

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

When you get the System Recovery Options menu, select Command Prompt. When the black window opens up type in sfc /scannow then enter.

When i select command prompt, a black window opens, but it says loading windows files, please wait and so i can't type anything in. then I'm straight back to the startup repair screen again.

bungalow_bill

wastedtalent wrote: »

Can you boot from a recovery CD? The one you get from Dell might work, else download a Linux boot disk and boot into that. If nothing else oyu'd be able to get the data off your machine with a linux boot disk.

Please could send me a link for the best linux download, there are quite a few options, and I'm not sure which is the best to use?

S0litaire

I suggest you go here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
just follow the first 3 steps (Click the "Show Me How" button for more info)
Step 1 Download a version of Ubuntu
Step 2 How to get that onto a bootable USB or CD
Step 3 Boot your machine with the USB/CD

Once in Ubuntu
Go to places at the top of the screen there's a long list of items.
Look for "computer" and directly under that you'll see an icon of a hard drive called "##Gb File System" (## will be the size of that drive, This is usually your windows drive)
Click that file
and your windows drive will open up
Then find "Hiberfil.sys" and "Pagefile.sys" (they will be the 2 largest files in that folder) and delete them.
I've found it's best to remove the pagefile as well, Since their might be things in that temp file that looks for items in the the hibernation file, so might cause problems during boot if it can't find the hibernation file.
It's safe to remove at this point as the "pagefile" is recreated at boot if windows can't find it.

Reboot into Windows and see if that fixes things...

GunJack

alternatively, if you're familiar with windows, download hiren's bootCD and boot into miniXP, you should be able to find your way around like that as it'll be a familiar environment, as opposed to possibly wasting time if you're not familiar with linux

S0litaire

GunJack wrote: »

alternatively, if you're familiar with windows, download hiren's bootCD and boot into miniXP, you should be able to find your way around like that as it'll be a familiar environment, as opposed to possibly wasting time if you're not familiar with linux

But the good thing with an Ubuntu (or any other Linux Live CD) is that the OP can have a play around in the system and see if they like it before or after they fix things...

GunJack

S0litaire wrote: »

But the good thing with an Ubuntu (or any other Linux Live CD) is that the OP can have a play around in the system and see if they like it before or after they fix things...

this is true,but to try and fix a problem, the OP might be more comfortable with a windows environment. Plenty of time to play with linux once the issue is fixed

bungalow_bill

S0litaire wrote: »

I suggest you go here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
just follow the first 3 steps (Click the "Show Me How" button for more info)
Step 1 Download a version of Ubuntu
Step 2 How to get that onto a bootable USB or CD
Step 3 Boot your machine with the USB/CD

Done all that, and changed the BIOS settings to boot from USB first, but all I'm getting is a flashing prompt on black screen. All the ubuntu is on the USB, but I don't think its reading it....

closed

do you need any data from it?
if not, restore to factory settings
if yes, buy a £4 usb hard disk caddy, copy your data to another machine, then factory restore.

Toxteth_OGrady

Try it with a CD. Burn the Ubuntu iso to CD using http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

candtalan

bungalow_bill wrote: »

Done all that, and changed the BIOS settings to boot from USB first, but all I'm getting is a flashing prompt on black screen. All the ubuntu is on the USB, but I don't think its reading it....

I find that even after the bios is set, some machines need a certain key to be pressed early in startup to invoke a onetime boot menu, which should show the usb in a list.