Inspiron 1545 fails to boot up

[bsmith03]

Hi there! About four weeks ago I was over in New Zealand with my laptop. I closed Down the lid to head to my room and then came back about five minutes later, opened it up, and pressed the power button. A flash of a blue screen appears but I can't read what it says on it and then once it tries to load it reverts to a black screen that says "Windows has failed to start up . A recent hardware or software change might be the cause." Then I can either launch Startup Repair or Start Windows Normally. I have tried both options, ran a hardware diagnostic test twice, tried to restore to a previous date, and tried to boot up in safe mode but each option fails and it just goes back to this black screen with the two options. Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be? Or if there is no solution if I can boot it up just enough to back up my files and pictures? The only option I haven't tried is reverting to factory settings but that is because I would like to save my files first. Any feedback is appreciated!

[ejn63]

The VERY FIRST thing to do is purchase a 2.5" USB drive case.  Mount the hard drive in it, attach it to a working system and make a backup of your files.  DO NOT go further without a backup.

Then return the drive to the system, power up and press F12.  Boot to the Dell diagnostics and run an extended hard drive test - you will likely find the drive is dying.

[DELL-Mohammed M]

Hi bsmith03,

Welcome to the Dell Community, With reference to your post regarding your computer not booting to windows, I would suggest you to run startup repair using the Operating systems disc (Windows XP, Vista, 7).

In order to do that, please perform the following steps:

1.Insert the OS disc while the computer is on and turn off the computer.

2.Restart the computer and keep tapping the F12 key as soon as you power on the computer.

3.On the boot device menu, select on-board CD/DVD drive and hit enter.

4.Then, you will see a message which will appear for 1 or 2 seconds which will say “Press any key to boot from CD or DVD”. As soon as you see this message, press any key on the keyboard to proceed to the next step.

5.On the next screen, select U.S English as the keyboard layout.

6.Next, on the install now page, select “Repair your computer” which will appear on the bottom left hand corner of the page.

7.It will then take you to the system recovery options page. On the system recovery options page, please select “Startup Repair” and hit “Next”.

8.The OS disc will repair all the damaged Operating system files and boot the computer to windows.

Please let us know if this helps.

Thanks & Regards

DELL-Mohsin M

Dell Social Media Responder

http://www.facebook.com/Dell

http://twitter.com/#%21/dell

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE21F49ACD1A6B608&feature=plcp

[bsmith03]

@ejn63 - I've done that and everything passes.

@DELL-Mohammed M - My computer didn't come with the OS disc. Windows came preloaded onto my laptop when it was shipped to me. I have Windows 7 on an external hard drive and tried to hook that up to my computer to try to install over the current Windows I have and that failed to work when I tried to boot from the USB drive.

[DELL-Mohammed M]

Hi bsmith03 ,

I have sent you a friend request. Kindly accept it so that we can proceed. Thank you

Thanks & Regards

DELL-Mohsin_M

Dell Social Media Responder

http://www.facebook.com/Dell

http://twitter.com/#%21/dell

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE21F49ACD1A6B608&feature=plcp

[bsmith03]

I accepted your friend request!

[Woodygehlert]

I have the same problem, what did you do to fix your problem?