Problem solved! It turns out it WAS the USB stick. For some reason my bootable USB stick was not bootable afterall, which is weird, considering it worked on several other computers. My programming teacher tried his USB stick and it worked perfectly. This still, however, doesn't answer the CD/DVD issue.
It is strange that neither boot from USB nor boot from Cdrom would work-that almost sounds like a mainboard problem.
What happens to the USB boot behaviour if you try removing the DVD drive,then the hard drive?Do it only if you have easy access to it - don't really believe that it will fix the problem.
Another "crazy" idea would be to remove one memory module(if you have two) - sounds laughable but there are laptops on the Dell market that can't be updated with the latest BIOS version because of too much memory installed.....
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PloP wasn't a bad idea.I use it on an older system without Boot support from USB.Works fine but seeing your problem I tested PloP on my inspiron 545(which perfectly boots from USB on its own).I used the option to install PloP without HDD installation.However choosing PloP from the Boot menu and then choosing to boot from USB my USBstick wouldn't boot anymore:blank screen,blinking cursor....might be a problem with PloP itself (or in combination with Dell's laptop)
Well the problem was there before i tried PloP. So PloP isn't the problem here. I wish I could unscrew the darn thing but that would probably render the warranty void. I've heard an idea that the currently installed version of Win7 could have corrupted the BIOS somehow (Sounds like pure BS to me). But taking into account that I updated the BIOS, that would probably eliminate that idea. Removing a memory module to see if theres too much of it for the new version of BIOS is probably a bad idea too, because the problem was there before i updated it. Thank you for the reply.
linmar22
4 Posts
1
November 15th, 2011 05:00
Problem solved! It turns out it WAS the USB stick. For some reason my bootable USB stick was not bootable afterall, which is weird, considering it worked on several other computers. My programming teacher tried his USB stick and it worked perfectly. This still, however, doesn't answer the CD/DVD issue.
linmar22
4 Posts
0
November 2nd, 2011 10:00
Oh and the same USB stick worked on two other laptops (HP)
MicroTest
3 Apprentice
•
934 Posts
0
November 3rd, 2011 07:00
It is strange that neither boot from USB nor boot from Cdrom would work-that almost sounds like a mainboard problem.
What happens to the USB boot behaviour if you try removing the DVD drive,then the hard drive?Do it only if you have easy access to it - don't really believe that it will fix the problem.
Another "crazy" idea would be to remove one memory module(if you have two) - sounds laughable but there are laptops on the Dell market that can't be updated with the latest BIOS version because of too much memory installed.....
=========
PloP wasn't a bad idea.I use it on an older system without Boot support from USB.Works fine but seeing your problem I tested PloP on my inspiron 545(which perfectly boots from USB on its own).I used the option to install PloP without HDD installation.However choosing PloP from the Boot menu and then choosing to boot from USB my USBstick wouldn't boot anymore:blank screen,blinking cursor....might be a problem with PloP itself (or in combination with Dell's laptop)
linmar22
4 Posts
0
November 11th, 2011 03:00
Well the problem was there before i tried PloP. So PloP isn't the problem here. I wish I could unscrew the darn thing but that would probably render the warranty void. I've heard an idea that the currently installed version of Win7 could have corrupted the BIOS somehow (Sounds like pure BS to me). But taking into account that I updated the BIOS, that would probably eliminate that idea. Removing a memory module to see if theres too much of it for the new version of BIOS is probably a bad idea too, because the problem was there before i updated it. Thank you for the reply.