The power failure obviously corrupted something on the hard drive, See THIS from Microsoft on Vista Repair. If the hard drive isn't physically damaged from the power failure and does not need to be replaced the Microsoft article should get you going again.
If you need to do a complete reinstall, and the hard drive is not physically damaged, the Dell Recovery Partition, accessed by F8 at initial boot up will restore the PC to the original factory condition (all user data that has not been backed up will be lost).
Back to the UPS. It should be the type that has an interface (connection) to the PC so it can do an "orderly" shutdown of the PC when the battery reaches the "low voltage" point. Apparently either you did not connect this feature to your PC, did not set this up in Vista or the UPS you are using does not have this feature and in that case I would recommend getting a UPS that does have the connection feature as it will save you from future problems.
Another thing to try is to disconnect the computer from the APC ups unit and plug the computer directly into a known good electric outlet. The battery backup might have taken the surge and failed. Pick a different electrical outlet, too, just in case that's the problem. Check your warranty for the APC unit.
I can get it to work for about an hour at a time, after turning it off and on a few times it seems to eventually give me the screen that asks about startup repair, that gets me in. after maybe an hour of normal use, it just completely locks up. stops working all together, i hafta force reboot and it's back to saying no boot device. Is the problem the hard drive or is it something else like a short in the motherboard? (i have very little knowledge of how the hardware works in a computer, it just seems odd that i can get it to work fine for short periods)
fireberd
9 Legend
•
33.4K Posts
0
April 10th, 2010 04:00
The power failure obviously corrupted something on the hard drive, See THIS from Microsoft on Vista Repair. If the hard drive isn't physically damaged from the power failure and does not need to be replaced the Microsoft article should get you going again.
If you need to do a complete reinstall, and the hard drive is not physically damaged, the Dell Recovery Partition, accessed by F8 at initial boot up will restore the PC to the original factory condition (all user data that has not been backed up will be lost).
Back to the UPS. It should be the type that has an interface (connection) to the PC so it can do an "orderly" shutdown of the PC when the battery reaches the "low voltage" point. Apparently either you did not connect this feature to your PC, did not set this up in Vista or the UPS you are using does not have this feature and in that case I would recommend getting a UPS that does have the connection feature as it will save you from future problems.
Mary G
4 Operator
•
20.1K Posts
0
April 10th, 2010 08:00
Another thing to try is to disconnect the computer from the APC ups unit and plug the computer directly into a known good electric outlet. The battery backup might have taken the surge and failed. Pick a different electrical outlet, too, just in case that's the problem. Check your warranty for the APC unit.
Crysthia
2 Posts
0
April 10th, 2010 09:00
I can get it to work for about an hour at a time, after turning it off and on a few times it seems to eventually give me the screen that asks about startup repair, that gets me in. after maybe an hour of normal use, it just completely locks up. stops working all together, i hafta force reboot and it's back to saying no boot device. Is the problem the hard drive or is it something else like a short in the motherboard? (i have very little knowledge of how the hardware works in a computer, it just seems odd that i can get it to work fine for short periods)