DELL Inspiron 15R (5010) Recovery Issue

Question

This is my second attempt to post this question; the first has never made it out of moderation.   I hope someone here has some insight into what is going on with my Inspiron 15R (Model 5010) and possibly some suggestions overcome this problem. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to provide as much information as possible. I did perform a search for answers and unless I missed it, I didn’t find a similar problem.   At this point, it is my opinion that DELL created a Recovery Partition on this Laptop that, after a Recovery procedure is completed, somehow points to loading the OS from one of their Servers or a device that is not available, instead of my local Drive C:, the next and subsequent times my Laptop is restarted after the initial setup is completed.   Background: I purchased this DELL Inspiron 15R new from DELL in 2011 and it came with Windows 7 Home Premium. Last year, when the free Windows 10 upgrade was available for this Laptop I decided to try it, knowing that I would probably have an issue with the Bluetooth capability. As it turns out, Bluetooth partially worked, but I lost the availability of my LAN card. So, I decided to use the Windows 10 feature that allowed me to go back to Windows 7 within the initial 30 day period. The rollback created numerous problems (couldn’t uninstall or update some programs, some USB ports didn’t work, and other issues) that I’ve lived with, but finally decided to restore my laptop using the Recovery DVD I created when I received the laptop from DELL. I didn’t restore from the partition because I wasn’t sure if it had been corrupted during the Windows 7 to 10 and back to 7 processes.   Recovery: The recovery from my Recovery DVD seemed to go flawlessly. It went through the recovery process, restarted the laptop and Windows 7 launched and I proceeded through the setup. I checked the System Properties and Windows was activated. Knowing that there would be lots of updates, I ran Windows Update, installed the first wave of updates, clicked on the necessary restart, the computer restarted, the DELL Startup Screen displayed as expected, and then the a failure dialog screen appeared. I’ve performed the Recovery about 10 times, with and without installing updates, and it always goes through the Recovery, restart, and first time setup; but whenever you restart the laptop or perform a shutdown/power on sequence, the same failure occurs. I even created a new USB Recovery Stick from the current Recovery Partition and the same thing happens. It is like a program that you’ve loaded from DVD, but when you try to change it, it looks for some non-existent server somewhere.   The laptop is as I received it from DELL, no hardware changes and no BIOS updates. And, after I perform a Recovery, everything works perfectly until I restart or shutdown/power on the laptop. It is interesting that after the Recovery and it restarts the computer to launch and setup Windows the first time; it goes through the DELL Startup Screen and launches Windows; but the next time and all subsequent times it fails after the DELL Startup Screen displays and seems to complete.   When starting the laptop; F2 (Setup) and F12 (Boot Options) take me to the expected menus, but F8 has no effect and it just goes to the error screen.   I went into the BIOS and checked the list of boot devices and found it interesting that a Diskette was listed as 1st Priority, so I changed 1st Priority to Hard Drive and moved Diskette to the lowest (6th) priority; but that didn’t make any difference. I even performed a BIOS reset to default settings, but that didn’t make any difference either. It should be noted that the BIOS Version is A12 and I think A15 is available, but everything worked fine before with A12.   As an additional data point, I decided to try to update Windows 7 again to Windows 10, even though I couldn’t update my Windows 7 to Windows 7 SP1. I used the Windows 10 Home 64-bit Installation DVD that I created. Somehow in this process, rather than update Windows 7, I created a dual boot system (Windows 7 and Windows 10). However; when I select Windows 10 (default) it boots, reboots, and restarts without any problems; but if I select Windows 7, I get the failure that I mentioned. So, I’m pretty sure the issue is with the Recovery Partition that DELL put on my Laptop’s Hard Drive; I just don’t know how to fix it!!!!!   Here is the error screen that appears after the DELL Startup Screen.   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. 2. Choose your language settings, and then click 'Next.' 3. Click 'repair your computer.'   If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.   Status:0xc000000e   Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.

ejn63 · Answer

Upgrading the OS destroys the F8 quick restore option - if the partition is still there, it CAN still be used but you'll need to invoke it manually.

That said, the description is exactly what you'd see if your hard drive were failing. Have you run a full diagnostic on the hard drive?

F12 at powerup - let the quick test run, and then boot to the 32-bit diagnostics and run a surface scan of the hard drive (this will take a couple of hours to complete).

To use the recovery partition where you cannot get in through F8, see

< >

(it will work with Vista or Windows 7).

BuckV115 · Answer

Hello EJN63; thank you for your quick response!

I forgot to mention that I had run the diagnostics from the F12 selection and everything passed, including the Hard Drive. I'll try that again when time permits.

The original Recovery Partition still exists; I made the USB Recovery Stick from it after one of my reinstallations of Windows 7. There just seems to be something wrong with the setup/installation information in the Recovery Partition. The Windows 7 installation from the Recovery DVD or USB Stick works through initial setup, but fail to start after that. The Windows 10 installation from the DVD I created from the ISO file works perfectly.

I'll check out your F8 workaround when time permits; thank you for your assistance.

BuckV115 · Answer

The diagnostics didn't find any problems with my Laptop. I even let Windows 10 load completely, ran the Command Prompt as Administrator, typed "chkdsk /f", and restarted the Laptop and let chkdsk run; no problems were found. The Laptop didn't come with an OS disk, so I can't boot from one, just the Recovery DVD I made when I received the Laptop and that only starts the setup program.

When I've performed the recovery, it has been a clean recovery and the new OS partition has been formatted before the factory image was copied; no problems were found during that process. I still suspect a problem with the actual factory image that was provided with my Laptop since performing the Windows 10 update, which actually created a dual boot system, works fine; but not Windows 7. After a Windows 7 Recovery and setup, Windows 7 works properly until a shutdown or restart and then the error occurs until the next recovery process. I guess I'll have to check with DELL and see if they can provide a workable Factory Image, if not, then I guess if I want my Laptop to work, I'll either have to stick with Windows 10 or purchase a Windows 7 package an perform a new installation.

Locked Topics – Laptops General

Was this post helpful?