About a month and a half ago, we deployed 23 Latitude E6420 laptops and 10 Optiplex 390 desktops utilizing the same Win 7 based image we created from scratch in our corporate environment.  From the 1st day of deployment, we encountered this particular issue.  At that time, I should’ve stopped the deployment and investigate why this particular problem was happening, but we wanted to get this deployment done. So far approximately 10 of these laptops have exhibited the problem of unable to boot first thing in the AM.  Basically they get a black background right after the Dell splash screen and the “Starting Windows” logo doesn’t come up at all.  I’ve determined that the BCD file is getting blown.  At first I tried to fix the issue utilizing the Bootrec /Rebuildbcd but to no success.  Then it occurred to me instead of fixing the file, I should just copy from a known good laptop.   The fix has been to boot an offline XP CD and copy a known good BCD to the bad PC. This has been the solution so far.  It’s not like the laptop blows on a daily basis.  It may last for a couple of days or longer.  I’ve had 6 of them that I did the BCD copy once and they’re all holding up for a while now.  Some of the ones that blew multiple times, I replaced with another laptop but kept the original hard drive intact with the copied BCD. BTW, the Optiplex 390 desktops so far haven’t exhibited this issue. 

At first I thought maybe some type of update (Windows, Office, AdobeReader, AdobeFLash….) was causing the issue,as the user would shutdown normally the night before and the first thing, the next AM, this issue happens right away as soon as they power on.  But some of the failed laptops I noticed didn’t have any updates happening per the event log and the Programs and Features applet.  I also checked the Event Logs for other messages that may point out something but nothing critical showed. 

Once the laptop is up and running, no major problems with any applications: Internet, Email, Microsoft Office Standard, Proprietary apps.

This is what I’ve done so far:

All hardware diags passes. 

Malware (MalwareBytes, Superantispyware, SEP, and TDSSKiller) scan, both offline and online, finds nothing. 

Updated the BIOS From A14 to A17. 

Dell Tech support suggests loading the Dell image that came with the laptop.  He said he was going to send an image on DVD but what they sent was just a Windows 7 install DVD. 

This is basically the same image that was used on approximately 50-60 E6420’s  we deployed on January of 2012 with no major issues. 

Thanx

Sid