Del inspiron problem!

jakko86

Hi all i have a dell inspiron and it wont start for me all im getting is a black screen with a flashing spacebar in the top left hand corner, I am clueless when it comes to this stuff so any help would be apreciated.

5uspect

Do you get the Dell splash screen and a Starting Windows screen?
Or when you power up do you go straight to black?

Also you're going to have to give us some more information.
What model your using?
What version of Windows is it? XP/Vista/7

jakko86

Sorry, windows7, inspiron 1545, No windows startup screen or anything, All im getting is the dell inspiron and a small loading bar at bottom of screen and then a black screen direcly after with a flashing spacebar in top corner?

5uspect

Like this?


By loading the Dell screen that tells us that the machine is POSTing and that the issue is most likely either with Windows or with the hard drive.

Can you boot into safe mode? Usually done by hitting F8 during the Dell screen.

jakko86

No just a blank black screen, on the dell startup screen i see a f2 setup and f12 boot options, ive just tried pressing f8 nothing happens?

jakko86

Just pressed f2 and iv got a settings screen with options on my left and at the bottom it has 'load defaults' and 'apply' and 'exit' to click on. the options on the left are general settings
system config
video
security
performance
power managment
POSTbehaviour
wireless
maintenance

??

5uspect

Yeah, that's the BIOS control panel.
Under f12 is there a boot in safe mode option?

Google or Dell support is your friend in finding how to safe boot a particular model.
There's no point in me doing it for you.

Once you've managed to boot into safe mode connect an external drive and back up your files. Then we can see about repairing the machine.

3ndahalfof6

Sometimes if you switch it on and just leave it to run, you might have to leave it running for 30 mins or more and not every time but sometimes it will take you to start up repair, once you run this it will probably say start up repair can not fix this problem,

then on the bottom of this message it will let you enter the other options (which would be the F8 options) from here the only option you will have open to you to fix the problem is factory restore, ( it might not be the route you want to go down)

but I do not save much on mine and this has worked for me a few times, also on the F12 options ( I might get shot for this) but I have changed passwords or created them and for some reason it seems to tricks the computer into taking you to start up, (because you made changes then saved them it seems to reroute to the start up)

all of the above have worked for me (even from blue screen) but now I just use the laptop for the internet, I have had to reset it many times or find a way to trick the laptop to start up via a different network route,

it can take a couple of hours to complete, but as I said I will only use this machine for the internet, watching movies, not for material I need to save,