Dell Inspiron 560 OS is Windows 7 64-bit Pro, never came with CD!

I bought this Dell years ago and the warranty expired. Now I'm getting errors from the hard drive that the OS was erased, got a serious virus. It only boots to DOS now, so I figure the BIOS and CMOS are working.

Called my Dad and he told me to hit F8, then boot with Safe Mode. Had to delete the last update of Java, because that was the last change that was made on system.

I think they put out the Update 73 and I got the first version on Monday before they found the incompatibility with Windows 7. My HP needed the update yesterday and it said to only install on Windows 8 and 8.1.

Responses(1)

Philip_Yip

9 Legend

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16K Posts

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February 9th, 2016 22:00

Power down the system holding the power button for 30 seconds. Then power up and press F12. Select diagnostics, see here for more details:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDpvQ3qwy1c

If diagnostics pass then use other computer to make a Bootable Fedora USB (your system likely has a legacy BIOS so make the USB for the MBR partition scheme) to recover your data to an external hard drive (the detach your external hard drive):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arX7DUWGCvM

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/data-recovery-using-fedora/

Use your other computer to make a Windows 10 TH2 .iso (your system likely has a legacy BIOS so make the USB for the MBR partition scheme) and clean install with it:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/download-windows-10-oem-and-retail-iso/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycGr3MBcAnw

Once you've made the USB I advise using Diskpart → Clean All:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/cleaning-up-a-drive-format-vs-secure-wipe-ssd-and-hdd/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJU8Gn4nSf0

Finally Clean Install Windows 10 TH2 using your Windows 7 OEM Product Key:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0F7ZvNsvL8

After Windows 10 TH2 is installed, ensure you install Malwarebytes' Antimalware and Antiexploit:

https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/

https://www.malwarebytes.org/antiexploit/

Then attach your external hard drive and give it a full scan.