Stumped by a PC startup issue

Cliff_ForsterCliff_Forster Icrontian
edited February 2010 in Science & Tech
Okay, so here is the deal.

My son was using his Dell 1501 laptop which the battery is essentially dead on, he just keeps it plugged in full time. Knucklehead pulls the cord right in the middle of something, thus a hard shutdown.

Now, it will boot, nothing is wrong with the MBR, it shows loading the OS (Vista premium 32 bit), you get to the password screen, type it in, but after that, blank screen, nada, its like its loaded something, but nothing is there to work with.

I've run all pertinent hardware diagnostics, memory, hard drive, cpu, graphics, everything seems fine. I've gone in to the command prompt to fix the mbr, and bootconfig (nothing seemed wrong there but I did it grabbing at straws).

Here is the kicker, knucklehead also tore the COA from the bottom of the machine, so doing a clean install with the disk I neatly tucked away for him is probably not the easy solution now.

Anyone have a bright idea? :respect::respect: I'm beggin, HALP!

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    Chkdsk /f?
  • Cliff_ForsterCliff_Forster Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    Thrax wrote:
    Chkdsk /f?

    I did run a hard disk diagnostic that dell builds into the boot settings. I ran the long version and it said that the hard disk was perfectly healthy, but I have to admit, did not think to run the standard chkdsk out of the prompt.

    I'll have to give it a run.

    Thanks.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    That'll fix it. Same thing happened to Tracey's computer recently. I ran chkdsk, fixboot, fixmbr and boom. fixed.
  • BobbyDigiBobbyDigi ? R U #Hats ! TX Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    Also of note if you do get to the point of reinstalling, Dell puts the windows keys in the machine (I don't know how to say that without sounding dumb because I don't know exactly where it stores it), what this means is that if you are reinstalling from a restore disk that originally came with the computer, it won't prompt you for the Key.

    -Bobby
  • Cliff_ForsterCliff_Forster Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    Bobby1211 wrote:
    Also of note if you do get to the point of reinstalling, Dell puts the windows keys in the machine (I don't know how to say that without sounding dumb because I don't know exactly where it stores it), what this means is that if you are reinstalling from a restore disk that originally came with the computer, it won't prompt you for the Key.

    -Bobby

    I was amazingly pleased to see that. I had to reinstall, everything I tried, nothing worked. Could boot to safe mode and virus scan from the command prompt, his machine had multiple infections (bad users are bad).

    So I figured to heck with it, I'll install, recover what I can from windows.old and just cross the authentication bridge when I come to it, and much to my surprise it was exactly as you stated, no prompt for the COA #.

    So all is good now, thanks all.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2010
    Windows 7 OEM licenses from actual OEMs come pre-activated through a series of XML-based security certificates. The master image for the OEM is created, then activated, then all the local licenses are injected into the ISO to make a copy that doesn't need a SN# or activation.
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