Laptop problem

[Piff]

Number 2 son has a Dell Studio 15 1558 which was bought as a "refurbished" from UKLaptops last June. Operating system is Windows 7 64 bit.

Today the laptop crashed while on-line and will not restart.

We have a Repair CD-R and a System backup DVD-R which we created when the laptop arrived.

Despite our best efforts we cannot get the machine to repair/restore.

Our attempts so far have resulted in the following error messages:-
"Unspecified error during system restore (0x800700b7)"
"Unspecified changes to system configuration might have caused the problem"

Any ideas how to get it to take the system back-up disc as the "repair" route seems to be running us round in circles.

 

[EDZ649]

Did you not get some kind of warranty/helpline when you bought it?

 

[wemorgan]

Is this of any help?

What are the system recovery options in Windows 7?

click

'To open the System Recovery Options menu using the Windows 7 installation disc or a USB flash drive, or a system repair disc'

IIRC you need to press F12 on boot-up to select the boot options. Or are you unable to get this this point?

 

[Piff]

Did you not get some kind of warranty/helpline when you bought it?

Comes with a year warranty - but I'm sure this will not cover software issues.

Have tried phoning them, but they closed at 5pm and don't re-open till 9am - I'm at work during those times!

Have sent them a message.

 

[Piff]

Is this of any help?

What are the system recovery options in Windows 7?

click

'To open the System Recovery Options menu using the Windows 7 installation disc or a USB flash drive, or a system repair disc'

IIRC you need to press F12 on boot-up to select the boot options. Or are you unable to get this this point?

No - it can't repair itself using the system recovery options described in the link you gave. I changed the boot sequence to the cd drive and used the system repair disc. It took us back to the same place and can't repair itself from the disc

One of the additional suggestions made is to remove any digital cameras or music device connected to the machine - there haven't been any connected today

 

[wemorgan]

Mmmm. Microsoft says once the Repair fails, try booting in safe mode ( I suspect this will also not work for you), then all that is left is to reinstall Windows.

What to do if Windows won't start correctly

Sorry. I hope someone can come up with a better idea.

 

[Piff]

Mmmm. Microsoft says once the Repair fails, try booting in safe mode ( I suspect this will also not work for you), then all that is left is to reinstall Windows.

What to do if Windows won't start correctly

Sorry. I hope someone can come up with a better idea.

Nope - will not start in safe mode. Keeps going back to Windows Error Recovery.

These machines are not supplied with a windows disc. Previous experience with a Tiny laptop was that the recovery disc accessed a hidden partition or folder containing the original windows installation & factory defaults.

All we can get is this Windows Error Recovery and it can't repair itself

 

[jonathanc]

This sounds like a hard drive issue, it may be terminal but may also be recoverable.
First have you checked the laptop bios settings to see if it still sees the HDD? It may be worth redetecting it.

If you have access to another PC you may be able to download another OS to a Flash drive (e.g Ubuntu) and then use the disk tools with that to fix you HDD. This is the approach I would take but please be careful that you don't accidentally make the situation worse. Another option is to remove the HDD from your faulty laptop and using an external 2.5" drive case (£20 Maplins) connect it to another PC and see if you can fix the drive that way using windows or third party tools. Of course if the drive is physically knackered you are pretty stuffed I am afraid.

 

[Stratman]

Get into the BIOS on bootup and see how much memory it thinks it has. If possible perform a memory integrity check.

Or beg, borrow or steal a memory module and replace yours with it.

 

[Piff]

Get into the BIOS on bootup and see how much memory it thinks it has. If possible perform a memory integrity check.

Or beg, borrow or steal a memory module and replace yours with it.

Did the memory test earlier - tested OK

 

[Piff]

This sounds like a hard drive issue, it may be terminal but may also be recoverable.
First have you checked the laptop bios settings to see if it still sees the HDD? It may be worth redetecting it.

If you have access to another PC you may be able to download another OS to a Flash drive (e.g Ubuntu) and then use the disk tools with that to fix you HDD. This is the approach I would take but please be careful that you don't accidentally make the situation worse. Another option is to remove the HDD from your faulty laptop and using an external 2.5" drive case (£20 Maplins) connect it to another PC and see if you can fix the drive that way using windows or third party tools. Of course if the drive is physically knackered you are pretty stuffed I am afraid.

Don't want to pull it apart or tamper outside windows as it is still under warranty.
It is booting from hard disc as far as the windows error recovery screen. Get the same screen when we boot from cd drive with recovery disc in.

How would you re-detect the hard disc from the bios?

 

[jonathanc]

After doing a bit of reading this may be due to a file lock that prevents the system booting. This can happen with some AV products. If you boot the PC but press F8 as soon as it boots you should get an option to use the "Last Known Good" configuration - that is certainly worth trying.
It may still be worth removing the HDD (as long as there is no tamper proof tape to prevent this it shouldn't be detectable to the warranty company) and checking it from another PC and if it is OK copying the data off ( I am assuming you haven't backed it up recently). At least then if you need to reformat and reinstall windows you wont loose anything important.
Another option maybe to run chkdsk from the recovery disk if you haven't already

Regards

 

[Piff]

Tried the "last known good configuration" last night without success.

Spoke to uklaptops.co.uk this afternoon.

Were able to help immediately.

F2 on startup to enter bios
One screen to right "advanced"
Scrolled down to SATA operation
Changed setting from ACHI to ATA

All works again

Asked how the setting had been changed in the first place - they thought probably a Microsoft update

Thanks for all the suggestions - all appreciated

 

[jonathanc]

Good news!

Its also comforting to know that Microsoft are continually improving their produsts to ensure improved reliability..........

 

[Piff]

UKLaptops went straight to the problem which suggests to me that I was not the first caller with this problem