No boot means the computer powers on, successfully completes the power on self-test, and displays the Dell logo on screen, but cannot access the operating system. This is indicated by either a plain black screen, a screen with only a blinking cursor, or a blue screen with a failure message. Common causes include a corrupted operating system, a connection issue between the system and the drive storage device, or a damaged drive storage device.
To address no boot issues, run system diagnostics for any hardware errors.
Restart your PC. When the Dell logo appears, repeatedly tap the F12 key to enter the one-time boot menu. Using the arrow keys, navigate to diagnostics and press enter. Then follow the on-screen instructions to complete the diagnostics.
If you receive an error code, make note of it and let us know. If not, let's continue.
Now let's check if the system can boot into safe mode. Turn on the computer. On your 3rd attempt to boot into Windows, the system will automatically enter the Windows recovery screen.
Click on Advanced Options and then select troubleshoot.
Choose advanced options. Select startup settings and click on restart.
After your system restarts, press the F4 key to enable safe mode. If your system successfully boots into safe mode, continue to the next step.
If your system couldn't boot into safe mode, skip this next step and proceed to the following step. We will now perform a system restore.
Search for recovery in the Windows Search bar.
Select Open System Restore and click on next.
Choose the latest restore point from the list and click on next.
Click finish to complete the restore process.
If the system couldn't boot into safe mode, we need to verify if the hard drive is detected. To do so, turn on your computer.
Repeatedly tap the F2 key at the Dell logo screen to enter BIOS.
Expand the general settings and click on system information.
Scroll down to device information and verify if the hard drive is detected.
Next, let's reset the BIOS to default settings.
Expand the general settings section, select restore settings and click OK.
Then click OK again.
Click on exit and then select yes to save changes and try to boot your PC.
Still unable to boot, it's time to try recovering the operating system.
To do this, you need to create a support assist operating system recovery media.
Navigate to the website shown on screen.
Click on download OS recovery tool.
Open the downloaded file and click on install.
You can close the installer once the installation is successful.
Insert a USB storage device with at least 16 gigabytes of free space.
Launch the Dell OS recovery tool.
Identify the computer that needs the operating system installed.
Select this computer or another computer.
If you select another computer, you will need to enter the service tag of that system.
After you have made your selection, click on next.
Verify the USB device destination, check the agreement box and click on download.
Once the download is complete, connect the USB device to the desired computer.
Restart the computer and repeatedly tap the F12 key at the Dell logo screen to enter system setup. Navigate to the boot menu and select the newly created USB drive.
Allow the system a few seconds to boot to the USB drive.
The Support Assist OS recovery homepage will display.
Under the recover section, use the backup files option to save a copy of your data.
Once everything is backed up, use the reset option to continue with the recovery process and follow the on-screen instructions.
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