XPS 8700 - NO BOOT Device message after an improper shut down

I have a new XPS 8700.  I shut down the computer, and when the screen went black I went ahead and pressed the power button to get it to restart. Apparently, it had not completely shut down (though all signal showed it was shut off - design flaw!), and I inadvertently interrupted the shut down with a longer than typical button hold.  When the system came back up, it went straight to a black screen that said approximately:  "no boot device available", press F1 to reboot, press F2 to access set-up utility.

After going through diagnostics with Dell support, they said that this is a software issue (hardware passed the test , with no error messages), and providing me any software support is not covered under warranty. I purchased this advanced machine only a few months ago.

Through the set-up utility, I did a reset to defaults, and made some changes to boot options with Dell on the phone - these things did not work.  I still have a dead computer, purely from an improper shut down. A boot disc was not included in the box, so I have to request one!!! that's frustrating.

Is there a way to reset whatever is messed up in the BIOS for this thing to boot:

-w/o wiping everything and starting over 

-w/o recovery media in hand

Obviously, I would prefer not having to restore and worry about losing/recovering old files.

As I understand it, it may be possible to change some things in BIOS to make this work, but I am not certain what the settings should be.  Is there a manual I can simply duplicate the settings from?

If I do need to restore it to factory settings, how can I do this - only F2 and F12 provide options.

Lastly, I did find the BIOS exe update file on dell, but I believe I have to be able to boot the computer in order to update the BIOS, is this true?  Can it be done from the bios screen itself, since I can get into that? 

Thank you so much for your help.