Vista booting problem

[Trevor]

Hi.

 

I'm using a Dell Dimension E521 with Vista premium home edition. It's refusing to boot up. I have done the following tests:

 

Attempted automatic repair which failed.

 

System restore didn’t work because there was no previous restore point.

 

Attempted to start windows in safe mode. It appears to load the files and then switches off - the same as when I try starting in normal mode

 

I have run the dell diagnostic tests (F10) with the following results:

 

 

Cannot boot the OS – All tests were passes

 

System locks up – All tests were passed

 

 

IDE device failed blank media or no media is present in optical drive. Test requires media with data (resource cd/install cd). Error code OFOO 13712 (I think this was for the optical wireless mouse because it couldn’t find it for some reason).

 

Looks like it’s a Vista problem and not hardware. I was going to reinstall but I only back up once a week! - Lesson learned. And I don’t want to take the risk of losing data.

 

Any suggestions please?

 

PS. I’m going to use online vault storage from now on – any recommendations?

 

Thanks

[Match]

Hi Error code 0f00 13712 does not look good :(

 

  Quote

IDE device failed blank media or no media is present in optical drive.

 

would be ether your cd/dvd drive or hd drive very much doubt it being a mouse as that would be USB, was you trying to boot from the vista DVD? or have you tried booting from the DVD?

 

can you tell us what happened prior to this problem? or if your HD drive was making any unusuall noises?

 

and have you checked in your Bios settings that the HD drive is set as the Boot Device?

[Trevor]

Re Vista Booting problem

 

I've tried booting from the dell install DVD - and it doesn't work.

 

Prior to the problem it was running a bit slow. My children have been playing Simms 2 on it though, which seems to slow it down.

 

Thinking about it I was upgrading to AVG 8 and it didn't install correctly. After that I had the problem.

 

The hard disc has always been very quite and there have been no nasty noises.

[Match]

I'm inclined to think that your Hard drive has died, but if you wait till Tooteck or Dalo see this thread they will advice you better than I can and how best to proceed from here.

[help4me]

Trevor.. have you upgraded anything? Your pc model should not have IDE channels. It only comes with SATA. Also... how much memory does that pc have?

[Trevor]

The PC has 2mg of ram and I haven't upgraded it

[Guest Wolfeymole]

2mg?

 

I think you'll find that's 2GB Trev. :)

[help4me]

Trevor... do you have restore disks?

[Match]

Help for me is right, its not listed on the Dell site as having IDE, which Brings us back to the question

 

  Quote

have you checked in your Bios settings that the HD drive is set as the Boot Device?

[BeeCeeBee]

Just to put a fine point on this. It is my understanding that you had a perfectly good operating PC (perhaps a little slow) and then you chose to download AVG. That download failed and you have not been able to boot since. Is that a correct synopsis of what has occurred?

 

You also said that you have no restore points. Did you disable system restore? If not, how do you know there are no points if you can't get get in to check?

 

I am just a bit confused so we may as well get as full a picture as possible.

[Trevor]

I was upgrading from avg 7.5 to version 8 and the install didn't work.

 

I did try the restore option but that didn't work either - the system told me that I did not have a restore point to restore to.

 

I certainly haven't disabled that feature and I don't have restore disks either I'm afraid.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

What EXACTLY does it say on that Vista DVD you have Trev?

[Trevor]

Hi Wolfeymole

 

I have 2 DVD's. One with the device drivers, utilities and diagnostics and the other for reinstalling the system.

 

They are Dell DVD's and both say only use these to reinstall the software. There is notthing on them saying it is a boot disk.

 

I'm having problems with this PC as well - keeps turning off, so if I don't reply you know what's happened. I think it's dust with this one though because it's done it before ....

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Ok Trev

 

If you decide to reinstall the operating system it will take the machine back to factory condition and all your stuff will be history.

 

It may be worth considering downloading the Vista Recovery Console from our Downloads Forum.

 

You mention dust, have you taken the side off to make sure there is no debris in there? If so give it a good clean out with a can of compressed air paying particular attention to the cpu heatsink and fan.

 

Try this and get back to us.

[Trevor]

Wolfeymole

 

Thanks for all your help. I'll let you know.