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XPS fail after video update via windows updates - no signal!
Stock configuration and I haven't jacked with any cards, no new hardware or apps, etc.
- Just living my life on Windows 8 and took an Nvidia update from windows updates last week - Killed the video on both monitors - black screen - booting to a windows 8 DVD lets me get to some options and I have run through ALL of them -
I've unplugged one monitor from card, and am using the straight VGA one - moving that monitor to the on-board VGA port gives blackscreen no-go message
Restore points are not working while booted to DVD, I have no recovery DVD, none of the advanced boot options work - everything loops black to french blue screen with a smiley face that I want to pinch, referencing 0xC000021a
Please note:
I cannot boot windows at all: I cannot get to anything except BIOS and DVD startup options but they don't go anywhere
I have run all diagnostics that are available pre-windows
Thank you to anyone with ideas
osprey4
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August 2nd, 2014 04:00
Hi Empowernv,
You said DVD startup options. What options do you have?
Since you failed to create a recovery DVD (despite all of the reminders), you may need to create a Windows 8 recovery bootable USB drive from an ISO.
empowernv
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August 3rd, 2014 12:00
Silly me - trusting that a Dell would just work, despite all of the notifications that a failure was coming!
I have used both a bootable Windows 8 recovery USB and DVD drive and ALL of the available options such as advanced startup options, repair, and reset from both - nothing does anything except loop back again through the bluescreen error. SFC won't run on or off line and yes I know my drive letters.
I put a new HDD in and installed Win8.1, and slaved the lame drive so that now I can see my files (most of which are on dropbox anyway) - At first I wanted to know what went wrong and to fix it - Now I don't care and want to reinstall the original drive to factory settings and get on with my life.
empowernv
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August 3rd, 2014 12:00
I'm looking for the necessary procedure to restore the original hard drive to the factory settings/installations.
osprey4
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August 3rd, 2014 17:00
I'm betting this had nothing to do with the NVIDIA update. More likely a failure of the boot sector. You could try this bootloader repair.
In the event this works, then I strongly suggest you redeem the opportunity to create a recovery DVD or USB. ANY HARD DRIVE CAN FAIL for a variety of reasons. An OS recovery plan is as essential as carrying a spare tire in your car.
If that bootloader repair doesn't work, more than likely there's a bad sector preventing the system from booting. Your only option would be to reload everything manually.
empowernv
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August 8th, 2014 11:00
Hmm, well the displays went dark after the update, and then the next couple of reboot degraded into a pile of OS errors, unrecoverable.
And the disk drive utilities from Dell and Seagate found no drive faults after extensive testing.
Either way - Dell sent me a Windows 8 reinstall media and I've done that, but not going to take the NVidia updates for a while!
My data's safe, just an incredible hassle to have to start over (recovery points didn't work, reset didn't work, etc.), so I'm just gettin' it done.
Now to get the machine to recognize the dell monitor... saving that for another post.