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Desktop won't boot up
Any ideas would be appreciated:
My Inspiron 660s wouldn't start up a few weeks ago - said "hard drive error" so I replaced the hard drive yesterday.. now it says "boot error"
Do I need to re-install Windows on it? All I have is the original disk that came with it.. I never backed it up.
My other question - would I need to connect it to the internet for this? I use Wi-Fi, but I'm beginning to think with the new hard drive it's probably not picking it up.
I'm confused at this point..
Thanks for your help,
Kristi
RoHe
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November 20th, 2017 10:00
The new drive is blank, probably not even formatted, so yes, you have to install Windows on it.
What version of Windows was running? If you don't have a Dell Windows installation disk, you can download the Win7 or Win 10 file for free from Microsoft, assuming you had either Win 7 or 10. You can download the file on any PC and create a bootable USB to install on the new hard drive. You will also have to install all the hardware drivers which you can also download for free from Dell's support page for the 660s.
It actually might be better to download the file from Microsoft because it's probably more recent than what's on a Dell disk and that could save you hours of installing Windows updates...
You can find a detailed tutorial here: dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/
And save the old hard drive. You may be able to install it as a secondary drive in the Inspiron to rescue all your personal files after you install Windows on the new drive.
kittykristigirl
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November 20th, 2017 11:00
so, I had windows 8.1. I may have upgraded at some point.. anyways, I will try downloading the windows 10. Then going to Dell and updating the drivers... this sounds kinda difficult, but I will give it a shot.
Thank you for your advice and help.
Kristi
RoHe
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44.3K Posts
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November 20th, 2017 12:00
Go here and follow the instructions to create media to install Windows on a different PC:
www.microsoft.com/.../windows10