[shellcomp]

I have a dell inspiron 1525 laptop which I bought from dell online. It runs on windows vista. Basically, I got it 4 months ago and it was working fine. Then last week when I turned it on, it was stuck at the loading screen (black background with green bar loading, underneath 'c microsoft corporation'..and sometimes it goes completely to a blank screen). I tried doing a system restore, but it still was stuck at the loading screen when I turned it on again.
I called dell technical help, and after hours of tests they made me do, like memory checks,,etc.. they said it was not a hardware problem so they couldn't help me. (since my warranty only covers hardware problems)
I wasn't exactly sure where to put this since I'm not sure what's the cause of problem.

Any thoughts?

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Hello shellcomp

Welcome to G2G! My name is Oreo Collas and I'll be helping today. Please be sure that you print or copy all of the instructions to a document on your desktop as many of the directions may require you to log into Safe Mode or unhook your internet connection.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please make sure to read through all the directions and make sure that you understand them completly before doing any thing. If there is something that you do not unsderstand then let me know and I will elaborate. Skipping steps, working out of order, or working ahead of the directions may cause undesireable results.

First of all, are you able to boot into safe mode?
1) Turn on your computer
2) You should see your "DELL" BIOS screen. After that screen loads and goes away repeatidly hit "F8" till a menu pops up.
3) Use your arrow pad to scroll down to safe mode then hit "enter"

Let us know if your computer starts up. Also include the following information about your computer.

If this is a name brand system:
Make
Model
Operating System
Age of the computer
Memory Total
Hard Drive Size, How much free space



If this is custom then We will need the following:
The CPU brand and model
The Motherboard brand and model
Ram amount and speed
Cd\Dvd rom interface IDE/ SATA
Hard Drive size and free space
Any cards in PCI slots
Any software installed\updated and driver updates done just before problem started

All this will help in determining a course of action to best correct the problem you are experiencing.

[Oreo Collas]

Hello shellcomp

Welcome to G2G! My name is Oreo Collas and I'll be helping today. Please be sure that you print or copy all of the instructions to a document on your desktop as many of the directions may require you to log into Safe Mode or unhook your internet connection.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please make sure to read through all the directions and make sure that you understand them completly before doing any thing. If there is something that you do not unsderstand then let me know and I will elaborate. Skipping steps, working out of order, or working ahead of the directions may cause undesireable results.

First of all, are you able to boot into safe mode?
1) Turn on your computer
2) You should see your "DELL" BIOS screen. After that screen loads and goes away repeatidly hit "F8" till a menu pops up.
3) Use your arrow pad to scroll down to safe mode then hit "enter"

Let us know if your computer starts up. Also include the following information about your computer.

If this is a name brand system:
Make
Model
Operating System
Age of the computer
Memory Total
Hard Drive Size, How much free space



If this is custom then We will need the following:
The CPU brand and model
The Motherboard brand and model
Ram amount and speed
Cd\Dvd rom interface IDE/ SATA
Hard Drive size and free space
Any cards in PCI slots
Any software installed\updated and driver updates done just before problem started

All this will help in determining a course of action to best correct the problem you are experiencing.

[shellcomp]

laptop is:
dell inspiron 1525
Windows Vista
4 months old
and I think it's 3GB of memory with 320GB HardDrive

I can't get into safe mode. I see the dell screen then it goes completely blank. I start tapping f8 from the very beginning, until it goes to the blank screen and it starts making funny beeping noises, so I stop.
The only two that I am able to go to are F2 and F12.
I attempted to reinstall windows vista, but it took much pain and effort for it to even get to the screen that says
"press any key to start cd boot" and pressing any keys did not get it to start.
..I am no longer able to get to the system restore screen.

thanks for your reply

Edited by shellcomp, 12 April 2009 - 09:46 PM.

[Oreo Collas]

I know most Dells have diagnostic lights on the back or front of the computer numbered from 1-4 and are eaither off, yellow, or green. What are the pattern of those lights? Do you have an OS CD? Can you boot from that?

[usasma]

Try a hard drive diagnostic. Some Dell's have them built in, but if this one doesn't try this link: http://usasma.vox.co...iagnostics.html

[shellcomp]

Do you mean the four little lights on the front?
one of them's the battery light, wifi light.?
If so, the only light that's on is the battery light when I plug the laptop with the battery charger.

I have the operating system cd, and that was the one that I tried to boot from..but I only got as far as the "press any key to start cd boot" and pressing keys did not get it to start.

Do you think there's a possibility of it being a hardware issue? Because after I see the dell loading screen it just goes automatically to a blank screen with a little white flashing "-" on the left top corner.

Edited by shellcomp, 13 April 2009 - 02:27 PM.

[shellcomp]

To usasma, I read over the link..
I don't think my cd boot is working, cause I tried it with the cds (to reinstall the system and programs) Dell sent with my laptop but for some reason it didn't work

[usasma]

If there's a problem with your CD drive that it won't boot from CD's - then there's either a problem with the drive or a problem with the disk(s).

Insert the Operating System DVD, then try pressing F12 as soon as you see the Dell screen come up, then attempt to boot from the Operating System DVD.
If it'll let you, on the second screen you can access "Repair this computer" from a link in the lower left side of the screen.
Try running Startup Repair from there to see if it gives you any ideas.

FYI - the 4 lights are available on older Dell desktops. I'd heard about something replacing them - but they probably checked that when you talked with Dell.

[Oreo Collas]

I got the lights on the new computers at work, but if this is a laptop then it may not have it. I have not seen them on laptops yet.

[shellcomp]

No, it won't let me, so I think there's also something wrong with my cd drive (probably, since I never tried to put any cd's in before so I didn't know if it was working properly)
Today I had a professional take a look at it and they ran a couple of tests determining it was a hardware problem. The tests they ran were completely different from the memory checks dell had me do.
So..I think I'm going to try calling DELL again tonight. Hopefully, they'll listen and not try to push me to their software line again.
I definitely need to learn more about computers, cause if I did then I wouldn't have to be so stressed. ha

Thanks for all advice

[shellcomp]

Hey! so good news, I called DELL again and they did the tests over and admitted their previous mistakes.
After long weeks of agonizing pain and grief on my part.
so anyways they're replacing my hardrive
thanks everyone

Edited by shellcomp, 13 April 2009 - 11:06 PM.

[Oreo Collas]

It depends on how the program checks to see if it's in a new computer of not. It is possible it will think it is in the same computer if they only replace the hard drive. As long as the windows key is the same I'd say you have a good chance.

[shellcomp]

K Thank You!

[Oreo Collas]

Sure thing. Glad I could help.