Dell Warranty - purchased 2010

Firemunchkin

Long story short: we bought a Dell laptop in December 2010, didn't buy the extended warranty or the OS disc.

Now it won't start up and I've been talking to some helpful technicians at Dell to try and get it to work. Been going through the repair options. In short Windows looks screwed. When the problems first started Windows wouldn't load except in safe mode - which fortunately enabled me to get all my data off it. At that time I tried running the basic repair functions but it didn't solve the problems. I was getting a black screen and white mouse cursor at that time. I was working my way up through the repair options, gradually building up to the complete wipe and restart.

Later Windows wouldn't load in safe mode either. Now when I turn the machine on and tap on F8 it doesn't even load the repair options anymore, it just beeps at me, gives me a black screen with a loading bar at the bottom saying 'windows is loading files' then I get a blue screen and white mouse cursor.

I think I'm at the stage where I have to purchase a year's warranty at £119 in order to get the OS disc and them talking me through what to do over the phone. I think it's the only way to get this thing fixed.

I'm reluctant to go to a repair shop as we spent £120 on that last year and it clearly hasn't got us anywhere.

Does anyone know if I can buy a warranty for the laptop somewhere else (and hopefully cheaper!) which Dell will accept so that they can help me? Or have any other thoughts? I am trying everything I can to avoid having to buy a new one cos we really don't have the money right now!

closed

hold down the power button for 6 seconds, then boot and f8

how did you factory restore it the first time.

Dells come with either the disc, the means of creating the disc, or the factory restore partition, and possibly all three, you certainly don't need to pay £120 to get a windows disc - if you mention which operating system it is, someone may be able to provide you with a link

in future, backup with disc imaging software, which is free, http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx and you won't have to pay people to fix software problems.

beeps could mean a hardware problem, if no F8 options work, you should repair or reinstall windows to find out. Software to recover files beforehand is mentioned in the speedup sticky thread

Gloomendoom

The beeps usually tell a story. Google Dell beep codes.

Mark_G

You can get a fully legal copy of windows 7 from Digital River (a microsoft partner)

Download the appropriate Windows 7 .ISO file which includes Service Pack 1
(Note: must match what your product key version is for)

Windows 7 Home Premium 32Bit: http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-58996.iso
Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit: http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-58997.iso

Windows 7 Professional 32Bit: http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59183.iso
Windows 7 Professional 64Bit: http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso

Windows 7 Ultimate 32Bit: http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59463.iso
Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit: http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59465.iso

You will need software to save the iso file to disc, once done use the disc to install Win7 using your serial key on the back/bottom of your computer.

Firemunchkin

Gloomendoom wrote: »

The beeps usually tell a story. Google Dell beep codes.

Thanks - I found something helpful on beep codes on the Dell support forum, but it appears to relate to beeping on start up - mine only beeps when I press a key.

Firemunchkin

closed wrote: »

hold down the power button for 6 seconds, then boot and f8

how did you factory restore it the first time.

Dells come with either the disc, the means of creating the disc, or the factory restore partition, and possibly all three, you certainly don't need to pay £120 to get a windows disc - if you mention which operating system it is, someone may be able to provide you with a link

in future, backup with disc imaging software, which is free, http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx and you won't have to pay people to fix software problems.

beeps could mean a hardware problem, if no F8 options work, you should repair or reinstall windows to find out. Software to recover files beforehand is mentioned in the speedup sticky thread

Yeah, it's the reboot and tapping F8 repeatedly which doesn't work anymore. It did before, but not anymore. Frustrating.

I'll definitely do an image save when I have it back up and running!

What I'm struggling to do is reload anything on the machine because I can't get past F8 or anything else. I haven't got an OS disc, so how can I reload the software without it?

closed

closed wrote: »

hold down the power button for 6 seconds, then boot and f8

how did you factory restore it the first time.

if you mention which operating system it is (and which model), someone may be able to provide you with a link

Software to recover files beforehand (and possibly fix the problem) is mentioned in the speedup sticky thread

You'll need access to another machine to create discs

Fergie76

Does F12 work instead of F8 on rebooting?

Firemunchkin

With many many thanks to NiftyDigits who has guided me to burning a new Windows reinstall Disc, and going through the installation stages.

Unfortunately, the reinstallation of Windows has not been working - and we've worked out why - the hard drive has had it.

I am SO glad I didn't pay Dell that £120 for another year's warranty and reinstall disc - what a rip-off that would have been! With the above help, we were able to do all of that ourselves.

This is definitely where google reaches its assistance limit - there's no way I feel confident replacing a hard drive, even with tutorials!

Our local laptop repair shop will charge £120 to replace the hard drive and reinstall Windows, and given we paid that amount to get the mother board replaced last year, it's time to give it up and get a new one. It's 5 years old after all, and next year there'll be something else wrong it which will cost another £120.

With the new one we'll get a (cheap) extended warranty to cover this sort of repair in the future.

:beer:

GunJack

new hdd is £30-ish, you have the windows disk, you really can do it yourselves, 6 screws and a few hours of installing and updating....it'll save you a couple of hundred quid

watch a couple of you tube vids and you'll see how easy it really is, honest....

NiftyDigits

He is right. It's a simple job that you can do for yourself. £50 max for a new hard drive.