[Guitar_Player]

so, I was factory resetting my laptop and i have a suspicion that it lost power at some point in the operation.  a few HOURS into the operation I looked over to see that the machine was rebooting over and over and over again.  The dell screen comes up it runs through POST just fine then it sounds like it's going to boot and RESTARTS!  it will do this infinitely if you let it.  I ran system diagnostics and it says everything installed and in working order.  I set the boot priority to dvd rom and put a windows 7 disk in and it still wont boot.  the only options i have from the boot screen are f2 and f12.  f2 takes me to basic boot setup, but not to disk partition, and f12 basically just asks where i want to boot from or if i want to run system diagnostics.  I tried pressing f8 to get to safe mode and whatnot, but that does absolutely nothing.  I'm at a complete loss  

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How old is the laptop?  Did it come with Windows 8?  If so you need to go into the BIOS and disable the UEFI and get it to boot using the Legacy mode.

[RKinner]

How old is the laptop?  Did it come with Windows 8?  If so you need to go into the BIOS and disable the UEFI and get it to boot using the Legacy mode.

[Guitar_Player]

It came with Windows 7 and I am not too sure about the age of it.

[RKinner]

Go in to bios setup and look to see if you have an option for legacy something or to disable uefi.  Write down how it is now so that if you change anything you can go back.

[Guitar_Player]

My options are super limited in set up.

 

Under main I have:

 

BIOS Version: a04

 

Product Name: Inspiron N5050

 

Service Tag: 95FLNR1

 

Asset Tag: None

 

CPU Type: Intel® Core™ i3-2350M CPU @ 2.30GHz

 

CPU Speed: 2300 MHz

 

CPU ID: 206a7

 

CPU CACHE:

 

L1 Cache: 64 KB

 

L2 Cache: 512 KB

 

L3 Cache: 3072 KB

 

Fixed HDD: WDC WD5000BPVT-75A1YTO (500 GB)

 

SATA ODD: HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GT60N

 

AC Adapter type: 65 W

 

System Memory: 6144 MB (DDR3)

 

Extended Memory: 640 KB

 

Memory Speed: 1333 Mhz

 

Under advanced I have:

 

Intel ® SpeedStep™ [Enabled]

 

Virtualization [Enabled]

 

Integrated NIC [Enabled]

 

USB Emulation [Enabled]

 

USB Wake Support [Disabled]

 

SATA Operation [AHCI]

 

Adapter Warnings [Enabled]

 

Function Key Behavior [Function Key]

 

Charger Behavior [Enabled]

 

Miscellaneous Devices

 

Under security tab:

 

Set Admin Password

 

Set System Password

 

Set HDD Password

 

Password on Boot [Disabled]

 

Computrace [Deactivate]

 

Under boot are just the priority list from CD/DVD/CD-RW/USB/Hard Drive/ Diskette Drive/Network

Edited by Guitar_Player, 26 January 2016 - 06:14 PM.

[RKinner]

SATA Operation [AHCI]  is probably the correct setting but what other options do you have?

 

Is there an option to set the BIOS to DEFAULT and Save?

[Guitar_Player]

I am sorry, I had school all day yesterday. Those are all the options I have that I listed.

[RKinner]

Try hitting enter on

 

SATA Operation [AHCI]

 

It should let you change it to something else.

 

When you exit out of the BIOS there can be an option to set to default.

[Guitar_Player]

I changed the SATA Operation to ATA.

 

I am not quiet sure where to find that option if it does appear. When I exit out of bios it just does its rebooting thing again.

Edited by Guitar_Player, 28 January 2016 - 03:25 PM.

[Guitar_Player]

I decided to take the liberty and make a video of what I am experiencing so you get a better visual for whats going on.

 

[RKinner]

Guess we don't want ATA.  Go ahead and click on Restore Defaults  see if that helps.  

[Guitar_Player]

I clicked restore defaults but nothing has seemed to change. Just keeps rebooting as normal. It has a bad battery in it and I need to keep it plugged into the charger or else it shuts off. Think this could be related in some way?

[RKinner]

If the battery is bad, unplug the charger, remove the battery and leave it out.  I have seen batteries load down the charger so there wasn't enough power to run.

[Guitar_Player]

Ok, I took the bad battery out. What should we do next?

[RKinner]

Power it back up without the battery if you haven't already.

 

If that doesn't help 

 

You will need to boot from a CD or USB drive (if your PC is new enough that that is an option).  I would try Hiren's boot CD.

 

http://www.hirensboo...BootCD.15.2.zip

 

Download, save and then right click on it and Extract All.  Click on BurnToCD.cmd and follow the instructions to burn the CD.  Then move the CD to the sick PC and boot off the CD. (You may need to change the boot order so the CD drive comes before the hard drive.  See: http://www.hirensboo...-order-in-bios/ )

Boot into MiniXP.

 

If this works then there is a chance the drive is good.  If it doesn't work then the drive is toast.