[kimy27]

Hi I am hoping someone can help me..

I have a dell inspiron 1525 laptop which I have had for about 2 years. I have never really had any problems with it until the other night when it completely froze while I was trying to burn a dvd using ConvertXtodvd. I tried ctr-alt-delete but nothing was working so I had to take out the battery. When I turned the system back on I got the message "corrupt master file table." Although I could still log on to my desktop as soon as I clicked on anything it would freeze up again. When I ran chkdsk it would say "windows cannot recover master file table."

After all else failed I decided to restore the original factory setting but when I would try to select "repair your computer" it would freeze up. That's when I discovered that it was my recovery drive D that was corrupt. I then had to reinstall Vista with the recovery disk that came with my laptop. This worked quite well and it even kept a copy of my old windows with all my docs, programs etc in a file called "old windows." I then formatted the corrupt drive D which obviously deleted all the files that were on it.

My new desktop seemed to be working fine and I managed to reinstall all my old programs etc. However it seems that if I run too many things at once my laptop either freezes up or restarts itself.

I am thinking that when I reinstalled vista I may have lost some important things that keep the computer running smoothly but I have no idea how to check that and was wondering if anyone had any ideas on where to go next?

Thanks and sorry for the long post.

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If the Recovery process ran OK, it's unlikely that anything "is missing" which would cause the problem. Recovery either works properly or not at all (in which case Windows wouldn't even start). Recovery does not miss anything out.

It may simply be that the laptop does not have enough installed RAM to run a lot of applications at the same time.

[phillipcorcoran]

If the Recovery process ran OK, it's unlikely that anything "is missing" which would cause the problem. Recovery either works properly or not at all (in which case Windows wouldn't even start). Recovery does not miss anything out.

It may simply be that the laptop does not have enough installed RAM to run a lot of applications at the same time.

[kimy27]

Thanks for the reply. I don't think it's the RAM as the laptop was running fine before the original crash. Is there any way to completly wipe the laptop and return to factory settings?

[rshaffer61]

The key combination is CRTL + F11 pushing the keys at the same time at the the dell screen during post. Once you push them then you want to release them.
It should go into the recovery partition so you can do a system restore.
Warning: If you do a full recovery it will format your drive and return the system to original factory settings just like it was brand new.
Does the system boot up now? If so please do the following.
Lets take a look at the hard drive and see what you have.

Go to
1: Start
2: My Computer
3: Right Click on "C" drive
4: Click on Properties
5: In this field it will tell you total drive space and also free space

Please include results in your next reply

If this does not work then do the next step.

Go to Start then to Run
Type in compmgmt.msc and click Enter
On left side click on Disk Management
On right side you will see you hard drive.
Now I need you to take a screenshot and attach it to your next reply. Do the following to take a screenshot while the above is open and showing on your desktop.

To do a screenshot please have click on your Print Screen on your keyboard. It is normally the key above your number pad between the F12 key and the Scroll Lock key
Now go to Start and then to All Programs
Scroll to Accessories and then click on Paint
In the Empty White Area click and hold the CTRL key and then click the V
Go to the File option at the top and click on Save as
Save as file type JPEG and save it to your Desktop


Attach it to your next reply

Edited by rshaffer61, 12 January 2010 - 08:46 AM.

[kimy27]

Hi there.

My total drive space is 285gb and free space is 94gb.

I also took the screen shot you asked for-



Ps. I tried ctrl f11 to see if it would work but when I pressed it the laptop continued to boot to my desktop.

Edit- my laptop shut down on it's own again and when it restarted it said "no bootable devices." I turned it off and took out the hard drive and then put it back in and my laptop managed to boot.

Pps I ran the reinstallation DVD and selected "restore your entire computer from backup." Unfortunately it says "a valid back up location could not be found."

Edited by kimy27, 12 January 2010 - 02:17 PM.

[zzturn]

Hopefully these fixes worked for the person involved. I have the exact same Dell inspiron 1525, and had the exact same problem after only 2 yrs. Frustrating. I didn't try the above solutions, instead I bought a USB SATA adapter--for $30.00. After hooking up my hard drive to it and plugging it in, I was able to find every single one of my files--WHAT A RELIEF!. Now I've stored them on disks and will proceed to the solutions above.

I thought I'd recommend the USB SATA Adapter, incase anyone worried about losing files. I can read files on it perfectly!

Thanks for being there for us G2G!



After going through 2 Dell laptops in 4 yrs...I must say...never again~!