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Dell Inspiron 1525 won't start up


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#1
mccourt03

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Okay, so my boss at work brought in this computer he bought off one of our other employees. He asked me if I could wipe everything off it for him so that it had nothing recent on it. So I ran the factory restore by pressing Ctrl+f11 at startup. The restore took a while, then we came to this option to choose which operating system, and windows xp was the only option and it had that before the restore so that's what I chose. Then from there on the computer would start, the Dell loading screen would come up, the loading bar would load all the way, then the computer would just shut off. And then it will start up again, and do the same thing all over again, and keep repeating these steps until i manually power off the laptop. One thing I've noticed is that the computer only runs while plugged in, as soon as I unplug it, it shuts off. So that leads me to believe a bad battery? This computer was purchased in 2008 and there were 3 discs given to my boss on purchase: a disc labeled "Windows Xp Pro", and then 2 unlabeled discs.

Things I've tried:
  • Starting the laptop with each disc in, then trying to boot from the CD drive
  • I've tried booting it from an Internal HDD, and also an Onboard NIC (not sure what this is but it was one of the options of booting the device so i tried it)
  • I ran the diagnostics and got an Error Code 0146. The message that came with the error is: error code 2000-0146; hard drive 1 - self test log contains previous error(s).
  • I've hit ctrl+f11 before the dell sign pops up at startup and also tried after it was already up and loading
  • I've tried hitting f12 = boot menu (Where i found the different ways to boot the device)
  • f2 = setup and looked at/checked a number of things. tried Boot sequence from there, tried load defaults (which is load the factory default values for all setup fields, overwriting any changes you may have made)
  • Also checked the battery at the setup screen: says under Battery Info: 0% charged, but then says under Battery Health: the battery is performing normally (which doesn't make since because it automatically shuts off when i unplug the laptop)
  • held down the fn key at startup
  • tried hitting f8 before it could get to the dell screen and after, but nothing
  • took the charger out, then the battery, held the power button down for about a minute, nothing
  • tried holding the power button down (in the above state) for about 15-20 sec, nothing
  • took just the battery out and started it with just the charger plugged in, nothing
  • left it off for a while (about a day) with the battery in but no charger, then started it, same thing happened (started up, got to the dell loading screen, as soon as it was done loading it shut off, and then repeated the steps by itself over and over and over until manually shutting it off [same thing as described above])

Please help if you could, any suggestions at all I'm willing to try. Thank you for your time.
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#2
Wolfeymole

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Hello Mccourt and welcome to Geeks To Go

Ok

Given the age of this laptop and the error message that you are being shown I would suggest that this indicates a dead or dying hard drive.

If your boss still wants to use this machine then I suggest obtaining a new hard drive.

I also need to know what exactly is written on the disk labeled Windows XP Pro.
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#3
mccourt03

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Okay I'll let him know, but could that be so even if the computer was working fine before the factory restore?

And on the disc all that's written on it is Windows Xp Pro, it's just a burnt DYNEX CD-R disc
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#4
Wolfeymole

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You say that after a restore to how the machine was in the beginning led to a shut down and a continual reboot, now this to me is either an overheating issue or a faulty hard drive and as I say with the age of the drive my money would be on the drive.

XP burned onto a disk suggests a pirated disk was supplied to you.
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#5
mccourt03

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Correct and okay I'll let him know about the hard drive, any suggestions on getting a decent but cheap one?

Haha and I didn't even consider that disc to be pirated :blink:
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#6
Wolfeymole

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I would need to know the exact model of the Dell laptop to determine if the hard drive is a SATA drive or an IDE drive before offering a suggestion as to what to get.

Here's a classic example of a pirated XP disk.

win-xp.png
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#7
mccourt03

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Well it's a Dell Inspiron 1525; model no. PP29L

and yep this is what the disc looks like:
file:///C:/Users/Matt/Downloads/IMG_3620.jpg
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#8
Wolfeymole

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Without knowing where you are from and your currency I can only suggest something like this which would be adequate for your needs.

http://www.amazon.co...M/dp/B0011U65F2
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