XPS 8930, won't boot into Windows

Okay. Did that and have the media on my USB flash drive. Put in pc and turned on and something different happened. It said: Support Assist is running a system scan to detect potential hardware problems. 

Hardware scan complete with no issues.

No bootable device found. Possible causes could be a corrupt OS image or a boot device not enabled in BIOS setup.

I guess that's something, but still did me no good. I set the USB to be first option to boot. It's the first time anything different happened but still don't know what I'm missing. Any ideas?

Sherry

If you set USB to be the first boot option in BIOS setup, that's not the right way to do this. Go back into BIOS setup and set Windows Boot Manager as first boot option again. Save the change and exit.

Now power PC off completely. Plug the USB into the PC and power on. Immediately start tapping F12 to open the boot menu. Select the option to boot from USB on that menu and let it load the Recovery Environment. Then follow the prompts for troubleshooting>startup repair.

That's what I clicked, startup repair. And then got that long message I typed back here.

Sherry

Tried troubleshooting/startup repair. Blackvscreen came up saying Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:

1. Insert your Windows installation disc and restart your computer. I have no installation disc. Computer came with Windows already installed with no disc.

2. Choose your language settings, and then click "Next".

3.Click "repair your computer".

File: \Boot\BCD

Status: 0xc0000098

Info: The boot Configuration Data file doesn't contain valid information for an operating system.

Now what? Dang! I was so excited...

Sherry

In BIOS setup, look at File Browser - Add Boot Option and see if you can add USB boot support.

CORRECTION: Just checked on my XPS 8930 and the option to enable USB Boot Support is on the Boot tab in BIOS setup, a couple of lines below the option to enable Secure Boot.

Okay. My only question is the only time I got to the window that says recovery, repair, restore, etc was when BIOS setup was set to open with flash drive first and you said that was not the way to do it. So I'm not sure if I can even get to a command prompt. I will try. This is getting to be soooo frustrating! I really appreciate your help. I am just getting tired of nothing working. But I will continue trying...

Sherry

You already made the Win 10 installation media = USB stick

In BIOS setup, confirm these settings:
Windows Boot Manager is first boot option
SATA Operation is set to RAID
Be sure to save the changes, if any...

Shut PC down completely again. Then boot via F12 menu from the USB again. Go to the Repair option and look for the Command Prompt option.

When the CMD prompt window opens, type in: chkdsk c: /f and press Enter.  Let it run and copy any error messages it reports.

Assuming no (unfixed) chkdsk errors, enter these commands, one at a time, in the order listed, and press Enter after each one. Wait until one is completed and you're back at the prompt before entering the next one. If you get an error message from any of them, don't go further.

1. Bootrec /fixmbr
2. Bootrec /fixboot
3. Bootrec /rebuildbcd

Assuming all commands are "successful", type Exit at the prompt and press Enter. Now just reboot PC normally with fingers, toes and eyes x'd...

Okay, will do. Logging off old, hanging.....but still working Dell, to work on little over a year old new Dell!  Geeeez!

Sherry

Yep, boot support is enabled. I did get to the command prompt again. Boot/fix broken went fine. Boot/fix boot said access denied. So I stopped like you told me to do. 

When I went to file browser to add boot option, it has a list of several drives listed in one long row. When zi clicked on it to add a boot option a page opened up with several things listed. They were:

autorun.inf

bootmgr

bootmgr.efi

setup.exe

They were listed like that. Don't know if that tells you anything along with the access denied part when running command prompt.

This is some crazy stuff here....lol. Gonna eat something and get back to it.

Thank YOU!

Sherry

Your list of boot options looks ok.

To try fixing the "access denied" for command #2, get back to the CMD prompt screen again after booting from the USB stick.

This time run command #3 on the list first. If that's "successful", run command #2. And make sure you enter them exactly as I posted them with one space before the / and no other spaces anywhere else, not even one after the last letter in the command. Type the last letter and press Enter.

Assuming both run this time, exit the CMD screen and reboot normally...

Hi Ron,

Thank you. I am going to do it now.

Sherry

Okay, this might be kind of long. Sorry.

Anyhow, the 3rd one I ran said: Please wait since this may take awhile.....

Successfully scanned windows installations.

Total identified Windows installations : 0

The operation completed successfully.

X:\sources>  (then blinking cursor)

Access denied on Bootrec /fix boot

Operation completed successfully for Bootrec /fixmbr

And the one that said it would take a while took no time at all.

I was going to try and do them over and make sure I typed them exactly right and couldn't even figure out how to get back in. 

Maybe I didn't make the Windows Media correct on the USB. But it did let me get into recovery a few times...so I don't know. Frustrating to say the least! 

So I finally shut down and restarted the pc to see what comes up without the USB in the drive. When I restart it still comes up with this:

Intel UNDI, PXE-2.0 (build 083)

Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation

For Killer E2400 PCIE Ethereal Controller v1.0.0.8a (07/29/2016)

Check cable connection!

PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE ROM.

Boot failure on device,. Press any key to reboot the machine.  (then a blinking cursor)

So I don't know what's going on. Bad USB media, something to do with Killer Controller, not using USB media correctly. I want to keep at this but didn't think it would be this difficult. I mean I can't even do a clean install the way things are going. I really don't want to do that and delete everything! But I need my pc. And it's not even quite 1 1/2 years old. My other 2 Dells were awesome. And I was loving  this one up until the day I thought the monitor died. Who knows, maybe even a update from Microsoft or something caused it because I've been reading a lot about the same things that are happening to mine. Sorry, just venting. 

I really appreciate all your time working with me on this. Let me know what you think. I'm going to try to get back into the Windows recovery window. Going crazy here.

I hate the idea of sending my pc to someone I don't know!!!

Sherry

Well, I got back into windows recovery...crazy. I put the USB in a different drive so who knows. 

Anyhow, there is one option that was not ever there before. It says:         UEFI Firmware Settings

Change settings in your PC's UEFI firmware.

Sherry