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Question

Inspiron 1545, won't boot from recovery disk

Sep 21, 2012 4:17PM PDT

"I have an Inspiron (Dell), 1545. At first it would not boot at all, kept getting error message "missing or corrupt MpFilter.sys, reinstall windows. My good computer (netbook), has no optical drive. So I created a bootable USB, and put a windows Vista ISO on it. It booted, put I still cant do anything, when I get to the part where I hit F8, and I have all the safe mode options, the "repair computer" option is not there. So I said "Uncle", contacted Dell, and they sent me the recovery installation disks. So I figured I am home free. I told the computer to boot off the DVD and it tells me it cant find any bootable media. I want to restore the computer to the original factory configuration. Any help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks."Computer then says no bootable media found, F1 to retry, F2 to setup, I have hit every key possible during every stage of the process. I also did the battery removal and power button thing, no change. Whenever I do get
F8 to work, "repair the computer" is never an option
taking the battery out and holding the power key, that resets the BIOS?
Before we received the disks from Dell, I made a bootable USB (my netbook does not have an optical drive), with a Vista iso, and windows recovery. That works, but when I run that it tells me no back_up can be found, and when I tell it to do the original restore, it tells me to
Find the directory where the drivers are located. Can't find them on the HD, or on the backup partition of the HD. I even copied the restore disk to a USB..didn't work...oh, I ran the memory test, the only thing it really let's me do. It seems to do a quick check of the HD and the optical drive, no errors, but could there be something wrong with the optical drive, and that's why the disk won't boot?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
For starters, ISO's are not bootable.
Sep 22, 2012 3:00AM PDT

Your statement tells me that you don't have a bootable Vista DVD. Later you claim that it did boot but your post is frankly a mess.

You are also mixing in something about a netbook which folk have been complaining there is no optical drive but when it comes to restoring the OS, you do need one unless you are lucky enough to know how to create USB media.

After all this I can't tell where this .ISO came from and if you created a bootable DVD that works elsewhere.

Dell does offer such a download at http://forums.cnet.com/7726-13974_102-5325452.html?tag=posts;msg5325452 but unless you are well seasoned I find most folk can't create a proper bootable Vista DVD. Again, there is no such thing as booting from a Vista ISO DVD.
Bob

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inspiron 1545
Sep 22, 2012 4:19AM PDT

I shouldn't post late at night when I am tired. Dell sent me the installation recovery disks. This computer will not read them. So I got an external usb optical drive, still does not recognize. So I guess I have 2 optical drives that don't work. I put the 1st recovery disk in a friends Dell, and it booted and started the recovery process on his computer. I had a bright idea, swap optical drives, but they had different connections. The bottom line is that I am trying to resore the 1545 to original factory. But obviously I don't know enough, so that is why I am posting here. Thank you.

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I can't tell where you are with this.
Sep 22, 2012 4:28AM PDT

If neither DVD drive boots these then that's what you test and fix first.

Old drives do tend to fail (OLD = 2 years or more.) So test your media on a good machine first. Then consider trying to boot from that USB drive on the good booting machine.

A test boot has never harmed a working machine. I do that all the time to test media and drives.

-> I didn't cover any bios settings as you seem to know how to set those.
Bob

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restore Inspiron 1545 to factory install
Sep 22, 2012 4:05PM PDT

I have a computer that is messed up (long story). Dell sent me the restore disks, but apparently the optical drive is also "messed up", the computer will not boot off the restore disks. Since I have the disks, is it possible to transfer all the data from the disks onto a USB (using a different computer), make the USB bootable, and then restore the HD on the computer to original factory install? Thanks.

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No.
Sep 23, 2012 1:02AM PDT

I've never been able to make the USB bootable after I transfer the data.

In the story so far, you have a messed up computer and it appears it needs repairs and you are trying to not do the repairs. YES there are articles to make bootable USB drives but I don't duplicate those here. Try a little research for that and find articles you like.
Bob