Dell laptop query
- Thread starter User
- Start date
Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
ian turner
Guru
- Location
- Leicestershire
Turn it on and immediately start tapping the f8 key.
This should bring up an old style white text on black screen menu listing start up options.
Select safe mode (not any of the variants of safe mode with command line or network or what have you)
Then let us know if it manages to boot up in that or if it hangs partway through listing all the files it's loading on startup.
Btw why did your colleague think you had any idea about how to fix it ? Are you working in the IT department
This should bring up an old style white text on black screen menu listing start up options.
Select safe mode (not any of the variants of safe mode with command line or network or what have you)
Then let us know if it manages to boot up in that or if it hangs partway through listing all the files it's loading on startup.
Btw why did your colleague think you had any idea about how to fix it ? Are you working in the IT department
rh100
Well-Known Member
Sounds similar to the problem Dellzeq had with his. It may well be virus related, or could be an iffy update.
Do as Ian suggests re: safe mode, if it can go that far then you may be able to use system restore but the problem with that is that the virus will still exist or the update may come back through again.
As always - get the malware bytes setup file on a memory stick and load that if you can. It would be a bit out of date but you dont want to plug that laptop into your works network to get it to update.
Do as Ian suggests re: safe mode, if it can go that far then you may be able to use system restore but the problem with that is that the virus will still exist or the update may come back through again.
As always - get the malware bytes setup file on a memory stick and load that if you can. It would be a bit out of date but you dont want to plug that laptop into your works network to get it to update.
Have you tried connecting it to an external monitor ? If not try that. Could be a dodgy connection on te screen.
Also on some Dell's there is some dodgy dell key. My friend has one and pressed it by mistake. If you have one of them press that rather than the power key and see what happens.
Does nothing at all happen ? Nothing on screen and no hard disk sound ? If that is the case. Take it to a shop to get it looked at.
Also on some Dell's there is some dodgy dell key. My friend has one and pressed it by mistake. If you have one of them press that rather than the power key and see what happens.
Does nothing at all happen ? Nothing on screen and no hard disk sound ? If that is the case. Take it to a shop to get it looked at.
ian turner
Guru
- Location
- Leicestershire
Two deeply unhelpful responses there. One from a religious zealot and the other from someone who didn't read the original post at all as the OP mentions the pretty desktop so therefore the screen is fully functional.
I would suspect that it is set to automatically login as the background to the login screen is fairly plain and it's got as far as displaying the desktop before explorer failed to load (the main shell not the browser or disk directory variety).
I would suspect that it is set to automatically login as the background to the login screen is fairly plain and it's got as far as displaying the desktop before explorer failed to load (the main shell not the browser or disk directory variety).
If you can boot from a different drive, it would probably be educational to go through the system logs to see at what point it's getting stuck. If it's possible to display boot-time messages that may also shed some light on things - although if it is something Explorer-related those will doubtless stop too early to be of much use. :/
If there is time pressure, the most pragmatic solution would be to simply restore the system from a backup. You may not have the satisfaction of having identified and resolved the issue, but you will at least have a working system.
If there is time pressure, the most pragmatic solution would be to simply restore the system from a backup. You may not have the satisfaction of having identified and resolved the issue, but you will at least have a working system.
