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Question

Wisdow Needed... Dell Inspiron 1545

Nov 26, 2012 9:25PM PST

Hello All,

Wisdom needed in regards to a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop. The question has been asked many times about a black screen with a white blinking cursor when you boot up. I have tried all tips posted on just about every web site know to man kind and still have the same problem.

I have run all tests and have past with no errors, I have reinstalled window 7 however when it goes to restart on installation it will reboot and again stop at black screen with cursor. I have formatted all drives prior to installation except the X: drive because it pops up write protected. I have tried to install windows 7 on both the c: and d: drives still won't boot into windows.

I have also tried to install Windows XP but that won't install at all, it will stop at a blue screen saying run ckdisk. Tried Windows Vista when that reboots same as Windows 7, black screen with cursor.

I have no clue what to do next, wisdom needed....


Tyvm,

MassNasty

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
About XP. One question.
Nov 27, 2012 1:58AM PST

How did you add SATA support to your XP install?

It's not automatic, and well discussed so I'll stop here on that topic.
As to the BootMGR, if the factory restore from hard disk is wiped out, why didn't you

a. erase the drive with DBAN to force the rewrite of the boot manager?
b. use restore media?

Bob

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Answer
Re: dell problems
Nov 26, 2012 10:09PM PST

Did you do the restore to factory conditions from the recovery partition or the recovery media from Dell? After that it should work unless there is a hardware issue. And then your laptop needs repair.

Normally, of course, it should work also with a retail version of the OS. But if you call Customer Service now, they'll surely have you do the factory restore and only agree that it's an error if that fails.

Kees

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Re: dell problems
Nov 27, 2012 1:54AM PST

Hello Kees,

Let me 1st say tyvm for your quick response to my post. I have tried the f8, f11 keys no luck there, however I did just run the tests again I got an error BootMgr missing,

I've just formatted all drivers again and reinstalled Windows Vista it rebooted and stopped at that screen again. I also tried the repair vista... no luck. I can't seem to replace the missing BootMgr.

I'm also not sure if that is the problem.

Tyvm,
MassNasty

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Answer
Try removing the optical device....
Dec 7, 2012 1:26AM PST

It might be hanging on the optical device, probably not

What the machine is doing is, after the dell splash screen, is going through the boot order.

You can all remove all bootable device, and see if it says no bootable devices, then add them 1 at a time.

I doubt this is the issue, because you were able to reinstall (i.e. the DVD and HDD still work)