PXE-E61 on Studio 1558

Question

I have a Studio 1558 that was riddled with viruses and trojans. I have replaced a dead CMOS battery and the HDD. It now has a Crucial BX500 SSD. The time and date are now correct. The BIOS recognizes the new SSD and reports the increased size.

I am using a USB connected CD/DVD to load the Dell supplied Windows 10 Pro Reinstallation CD/DVD which happens to be purple. When I've booted from that CD/DVD I end up with

PXE-E61: Media test. Failure, check cable.

PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.

Operating System not found

The BIOS recognizes the SSD as well as it did for the old HDD, so I know the cable is ok.The correct sizes were reported for each.

I've read some reports online that say this error is related to trying to boot from a network that doesn't exist. The USB connected is listed first in the Boot order. I've removed it after the OS seems to get loaded as well as have left it attached after the OS seems to get loaded and have set the SSD, not CD/DVD, to first in the Boot order at that point.

When I boot from the CD I choose "English", "US", "Troubleshoot", and the recover from Disk option without formatting. The only other option at Troubleshooting is to shutdown.

The laptop then starts reporting on the % of Operating System loading. The light flashes on and off the CD/DVD device over time as it is being read. After installing the SSD the "loading" went much faster when the SDD was installed so I'm pretty certain the SSD, or HDD for that matter, is being written to.

This feels like a non bootable floppy drive left in the floppy drive when the floppy drive is in first of Boot from many years ago. It too would say Operating System not Found.

Help?

EDIT for clarity: When the CD/DVD drive is left attached without media in it the drive does not flash so the laptop is not looking there for the OS.

ejn63 · Answer

Are you booting from a resource disc, or the operating system disc? The resource disc needs the operating system image (which would have been on the drive when this system was manufactured). That recovery image is likely long gone -- meaning you need to boot the system from a Windows install disc, not the recovery CD.

artesian79 · Answer

The O/S disc.

artesian79 · Answer

I forgot to mention above that I ran Diagnostics from the Boot Order screen in BIOS.

It stopped after testing a less than full amount of memory saying no errors had been found and did I want to test the rest of memory. It noted that all tests had passed. I chose to not continue to test the full memory. All the other tests are run prior to the memory and since they all passed I did no feel the need to continue just to test the rest of memory

Stellenbosch · Answer

It can be your CD Rom is bad or CD is scratched, will advise to create a Windows USB boot disk on another PC from MSN and do a clean install much faster and install drivers from CD or Dell website.

Just search for "windows boot disk creator tool" and select Windows 10, your laptop will install correct version on its own and activate Windows.

XPS

PXE-E61 on Studio 1558

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