[mizzaboone]

My Dell Inspiron e1505 won't boot its os. It's running windows vista. when i turn it on everthing is fine until just before the log in screen appears. The screen goes black and all i can see is a curser arrow. I can move it around. Also there is a little light that is a pcture of a lock with a 9 in it that stays on. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with my computer?

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Have you tried Last Known Good Configuration, or Safe Mode?

Try Last Known Good Configuration first... same steps as safe mode, but choose Last Known Good Configuration instead.

To Restart your Computer in Safe Mode:

• Restart your computer, holding or tapping F8 repeatedly, until you hear a beep, or get to the Advanced Options menu.
• Scroll to Safe Mode, then press Enter.
• You will see a large list of drivers loading.. this is normal, just be patient.
• After a minute or two Windows will start loading, probably in a larger resolution than you are used to.
• Log in as Administrator, or an account with administrator privileges.

If neither of those work, you'll have to do a Windows Recovery. Do you have your Windows installation disks?

-Tony

[ersatz]

Have you tried Last Known Good Configuration, or Safe Mode?

Try Last Known Good Configuration first... same steps as safe mode, but choose Last Known Good Configuration instead.

To Restart your Computer in Safe Mode:

• Restart your computer, holding or tapping F8 repeatedly, until you hear a beep, or get to the Advanced Options menu.
• Scroll to Safe Mode, then press Enter.
• You will see a large list of drivers loading.. this is normal, just be patient.
• After a minute or two Windows will start loading, probably in a larger resolution than you are used to.
• Log in as Administrator, or an account with administrator privileges.

If neither of those work, you'll have to do a Windows Recovery. Do you have your Windows installation disks?

-Tony

[mizzaboone]

Tried all of that still not working. Unfortunatly I don't have recovery disks. What does the lock symbol with a 9 in it mean? Is there anything I can do without the recovery disks?

[ersatz]

Hmm.. not sure what the lock symbol is.

We rally can't do anything without a recovery CD. Try this:

If you don't have Vista DVD...

1. Create Vista Recovery Disc.

Option 1:
http://www.c4consult...0SOLUCTIONS.htm

Option 2:
Download Vista Recovery Disc iso image: http://neosmart.net/...-disc-download/
Burn it to CD, or DVD: http://neosmart.net/... to a CD or DVD

2. Boot from created disk.
At first screen click on Repair your computer:

This will bring you to a new screen where the repair process will look for all Windows Vista installations on your computer. When done you will be presented with the System Recovery Options dialog box:

After this, it will present you with a list of options including startup repair, system restore and command prompt:

Try System Restore, first.
If that doesn't work, try Startup Repair.

[rshaffer61]

Hey guys can I add some things here. Dell probably has the recovery partition on the hard drive and can be accessed usually by doing the following.
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.

After entering it you may be given a choice of which type of recovery you would like to do.
Destructive: formats hard drive and returns system to factory like new.
Non Destructive is like a Repair Installation and just repairs or replaces missing windows files.

[ersatz]

Thanks rshaffer61! Still learning all this stuff.

Give me a few years to catch up to your knowledge.

[rshaffer61]

Thanks rshaffer61! Still learning all this stuff.

Give me a few years to catch up to your knowledge.