Recovery software for my E6520?

Please tell me whether the installation screen your stuck at looks like this? Does this happen for Win7, 8.1 and 10?

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows/downloading-preparing-and-loading-sata-drivers/

Exactly.  I went to the link, but what section are the F6FLPY SATA drivers and do they come with instructions on how to load them.   Remember I have no OS.

Exactly.  I went to the link, but what section are the F6FLPY SATA drivers and do they come with instructions on how to load them.   Remember I have no OS.

They are under the SATA category see here for instructions in how to download and prepare them:

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/a-clean-install-of-windows/downloading-preparing-and-loading-sata-drivers/

I went to the Dell driver site and downloaded the following:

The second one was a zip file, so I ran the circled .exe file to get the following in the x64 folder.

and I transferred these two files into onto a second USB, because I didn't know how to include it onto the 8.1 .iso USB.

I then booted from the USB with the W8.1 .iso on it to the point where it asks for the drivers.  I pointed to the folder with these two files on the second USB and selected OK.  I tried it with and without the checked box referring to the hidden files. and I got this returned,

Is this the correct process for my E6520?  The only other thing I can think of was that I chose the Windows 8 drivers, because there was no Windows 8.1 driver.

Almost but the wrong x64 folder. Go to the drivers folder and then the AHCI subfolder and then the x64 subfolder.

Okay.  Getting there.  BTW, thanks for your patience.  got it to load and it went through the steps of loading and updating and after the last step, restarting.  The screen went blank and all I got was a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.  I let it run for about 20 minutes, and figured it was frozen.  When the system said it was going to restart, I didn't know whether I needed to take the USB out so I left it in.  So, then I turned it off and unplugged the USB and tried to start it.  All I got was the blinking cursor in the upper left again.

I thought I'd try to reinstall and when I went through it again, instead of the blank frame that I was getting, I got the following.

What went wrong.  Should I select repair when the Install screen comes up during the reboot with the USB?  Should I go ahead and try to install W10 now, or get 8.1 running first?

First the black screen with the white line means the system has attempted to boot to a device that is unbootable. This can happen if an external hard drive is connected or for that model if it is booting to legacy instead of UEFI or vice versa. I would imagine your Latitude E6420 should be similar to my E5510 so see the UEFI BIOS settings here:

https://youtu.be/pyut46uoaiI?list=PL1RkaknDn7v-Ucth4gt0U3BHVSY7oNkWr&t=867

The drive shows this time because the SATA driver is already loaded onto the hard drive.

MY E6520 is not hooked up to any external disk drive.  I've looked at the video above, but it is installing a BIOS with an installed OS.  Below is what I get if I boot with the W8.1 USB.  Note that one option does not show up if I boot without the USB drive.  Does this help with reference to your UEFI question?  I've been using the non-RAID option.

If I look at the systems BIOS I get the following screen:

Notice that I am at A04.  The most recent BIOS is A19 on the Dell site in the BIOS section.  How do I install that bios without an OS?

This screenshot explains whats happening. First you essentially boot from the UEFI Windows 8.1 USB and begin the Windows installation (not sure what the RAID one is but perhaps you've installed Windows twice). What should happen after the first restart (and then onwards) is you should boot to the "Windows Boot Manager" under UEFI. 

What is happening in your case is the system is booting from the internal hard drive in legacy. As it tries to boot from it you get the black screen with the white line.

This model like the E5510 are one of the first models with the UEFI BIOS so the settings are a little bit more fussy/tricky especially on the earlier BIOS revisions.

So what you want to do is. Power down your computer. Press F12 and boot from the Windows installation media. At this stage do a Diskpart→Clean. Lets clean the drive and start over:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJU8Gn4nSf0&list=PL1RkaknDn7v-Ucth4gt0U3BHVSY7oNkWr&index=10

After cleaning the drive power down the computer.

Press F12 and begin the Windows installation. Load the preinstallation SATA drivers as before. Continue the installation.

Then the computer will restart and take you to your black screen. Power down the computer. Press F12 and select Windows Boot Manager (under UEFI). The Windows installation should proceed.

Every time the computer restarts power it down and then press F12 and select Windows Boot Manager. When you get to the Windows 8.1 Desktop remove the Windows 8.1 USB. Next you should be able to then update the UEFI BIOS to the latest revision.

After you update the BIOS to the latest revision power up your computer and press F2 which will take you to the BIOS setup. Go to general and then go to Boot/Sequence. Select UEFI and then select Exit. Follow the prompts to save changes if asked. This should now save the settings as UEFI and Windows Boot Manager should be the default.

   Okay.  Got it.  One thing though, the video says to type in "list part", and that didn't work for me.  The only argument that worked with list is "disk".

When I upgrade to W10, how do I direct the boot to the DVD or the USB?  Do I have to go back to the "Legacy" radio button and the boot? Will I not have to worry about the original error if I run Legacy to point to the DVD or USB?  

Also, will it ask me for the certification number when I install W10?

Thanks again for your help and patience.

Great! :) The only driver/application I installed from Dell after my Windows 10 Upgrade on my E5510 was Dell Quickset. All the other drivers were inbuilt or automatically installed via Windows Update. I expect it'll be very similar for this model.

This was very instructive, and everything works great now.  I have an e6230 with W7 on it currently, which will be next project.  I may have to tap you on a different thread after the holidays.  I got the drivers updated, but I don't get the same booting options that I got with the e6520.  I'm using the same USB iso that I used for this, but I get some errors.  I'll play with it for a while, but I may need your help again.  Happy holidays.