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Vostro 1400 laptop Vista update in infinite loop
A few months ago my Vostro1400 laptop started to act up - couldn't install Windows update, no firewall or anti-virus. I decided to reformat the drive and reinstall vista from Dell's Vista disk. The install worked, but I can't get updates to work and the laptop is now in an infinite loop of reboot, split second blue screen of death, system restore, etc - wash rinse repeat.
I can't work with the base Vista install, because many programs require SP 1 & SP 2. I tried the manual install of SP1, but same problem. I've been at this for 5 days with no luck.
Any help is appreciated. Do I need a new hard drive?
DELL-Royan S
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July 31st, 2012 21:00
Hi,
Welcome to the Community. Press the F12 key at the Dell Logo, select Diagnostics and run an extended diagnostics on your hard drive. Post back with any error codes.
It looks like the hard drive is faulty.
If you have an Active Warranty, send me a private message, click on my user name, add me as a friend, and send me your service tag, phone number and address.
Thank you.
gerrygr1
5 Posts
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August 1st, 2012 07:00
Thanks. Will run it later today when I get back home. The laptop is out of warranty.
gerrygr1
5 Posts
0
August 1st, 2012 20:00
Ran the diagnostics and everything came up clean. I flashed the BIOS update a few years before too.
Will take the HD out and put it back to see if there's some kind of a loose connection. But after that, I'm stuck.
DELL-Royan S
3.8K Posts
0
August 2nd, 2012 04:00
Hi,
I know you have already tried this, but give it a shot. Try manually reinstalling windows using the below link.
support.dell.com/.../document
Thank you.
gerrygr1
5 Posts
0
August 2nd, 2012 07:00
I'm now on my fourth iteration of a clean Windows install after reformatting the hard drive. I am now manually updating Vista by installing 5 update releases at a time. So far, I'm done through the 2007 Vista updates and get a clean reboot. We'll see what happens when I install more updates.
gerrygr1
5 Posts
0
August 5th, 2012 20:00
Finally got it working. Installing the updates four at a time, got a clean load of Windows FixIt and that cleaned up a bad Windows Update engine. After that, it's been working fine and I'm slowly regaining the laptop back. Only took two weeks...