COMPUTER CRASHED FOR THE 3RD TIME!!

That makes sense indeed sir!

It might be more sinister than just finding the OS drive then - could be that as it did not successfully boot and required a restart (not your fault at all by any means here) that some of how Vista starts got screwed up. If you see the Dell logo followed by the Vista or any Microsoft screen its looking at the correct drive, just not the files to start correctly.

I would hope you could boot from CD/DvD (should be an option in the bios) or worst case from an external Drive and 'repair' (sorry, not used Vista much at all myself) just the very start of the filesystem. If you have a local guy of a PC savvy mate, they might be able to boot your Vista from an original disk and get you back and running fairly quick :)

This shouldn't be a disaster but its strange it would happen on a new machine!

HTH

Dave
 
As I pointed out to FD in PM, this can also be a sign of a loose cable or a slow-failing hard drive.

An MBR failure represents a failure to even FIND bootable contents of the drive.
The error he's describing with SATA 1 being empty usually indicates the hard drive isn't even registering with the BIOS.

Re-seating the SATA cable might fix it.

Beyond that though, I suspect the HD is dying.

It is unlikely, imho, that XP would make any difference to this sick machine.
 
Didnt think of a loose cable! DOH!

Yep could be as simple as that - fingers crossed!

Just a thought - would it boot as far as the MS logo, booting progress bar (with no progress) in that case also?

Dave
 
Didnt think of a loose cable! DOH!

Yep could be as simple as that - fingers crossed!

Just a thought - would it boot as far as the MS logo, booting progress bar (with no progress) in that case also?

Dave

YES!! i get that boot progress, then nothing....then i shut if off, and get that screen with the different options to start windows...
 
Sounds like windows is corrupted. WHY it's corrupted, is open to debate.

Causes of Windows Corruption:
1) Windows Sucks
2) Hard Drive Failure
3) "Hard" Shut downs (You turned it off while it was running or trying to boot)

Truthfully though, the last one is pretty remote in the more modern versions of Windows. (XP and onward.)

And unfortunately, #1 is not as uncommon as we'd like. There are a variety of things that can go wrong and cause it to corrupt itself.

That said, however, a system restore from a CD or fresh installation should remedy the problem. You've done that several times and are still seeing the issue.

As much as I hope its not #2, it's my best guess.

Good luck!
 
another thing is we get alot of the internet explorer locking up, freezing if you will, and wont open the page we want to go to, or even if we close out of a window on the internet it does this, and sometimes a pop up will freeze that page, like if i print a shipping label from paypal, you get that window that pops up showing the label and then asking to print with all the options....are these related maybe?
 
I have a Dell XPS M1530 laptop, and I've had to reinstall Vista three times because of it corrupting itself. I agree with the others above; it sounds like your hard drive is dying. Do you have an external/backup hard drive that you could try installing Vista on? That could definitively narrow it down to a hard drive issue if it runs properly on a different drive.
 
Maybe, maybe not. Freezes are a symptom of lots of things.
1) Bad luck. (It happens. The system occasionally gets IO bound and its nothing worse than that)
2) Bad program (Yes, Microsoft does still suck.)
3) Worse program (You could have a virus or malware that is jacking the browser and screwing with things.)
4) Bad hardware (Almost ANY failing component can cause a lockup. But you usually do NOT recover from it. IT would be a total system lockup, not just a single program.)

It could be related. It might not.

Unfortunately, at this point your problem appears to be a fairly serious one and one you're not entirely comfortable fixing yourself. I don't blame you. MBR errors aren't exactly easy to diagnose or fix.

My best advice at this point is to take it to a reputable computer service technician and have them at least try to diagnose the problem.

It's an expense, but it might be worth it.

If it's in warranty, call Dell about the MBR error. They'll likely diagnose it as a hard drive failure and have you send it in for repair. (But they will send you through 30,000 hoops first.) It's up to you what course you want to pursue.

I'm sorry FD. That really does suck. When I saw this, I was hoping for a simple driver conflict.
 
well, thanks guys! you are all totally awesome! so appreciated...i do know that my computer is under warranty, so shouldnt Dell have to send me another hard drive? do i want another hard drive from them?
 
As I pointed out to FD in PM, this can also be a sign of a loose cable or a slow-failing hard drive.

An MBR failure represents a failure to even FIND bootable contents of the drive.
The error he's describing with SATA 1 being empty usually indicates the hard drive isn't even registering with the BIOS.

Re-seating the SATA cable might fix it.

Beyond that though, I suspect the HD is dying.

It is unlikely, imho, that XP would make any difference to this sick machine.

I agree with Nyx, except for one thing. Your hard drive should be connected to SATA 0

Re-seat cables first, if its still not working, hit F2 to enter setup when you power on the machine. Once in the BIOS, go down to Drives, then SATA0.
View the drive details at the bottom of the page to see if BIOS is detecting your drive.
 
well, thanks guys! you are all totally awesome! so appreciated...i do know that my computer is under warranty, so shouldnt Dell have to send me another hard drive? do i want another hard drive from them?

Yes they do.

And maybe. It's hit and miss. The upside? It's free. The downside? It might fail again.

Personally, if I have a warranty, I use it until it's dead if I have any problems.

Edit: Haha! You're right Wes. Curse me and my base 0 forgetfulness.
 
This is a fairly common occurence with Dell systems. I would bet money the hard drive is going out.

Make use of that warranty, they will replace the drive for free.


** After looking up your system, I do see Dell has 3 urgent driver updates for Vista machines**
 
Guys, please go back can change your language in your post. If it comes up with **** for words, there is a reason. It is a banned word and it needs changed.

Personally, I love Dell business hardware. It breaks as much as the HP and Compaq stuff that I work on. My laptop lasted 5 years. The only thing that stopped it was when I put my car into a tree. The car and the laptop did not make it. I would still be using it but, I had to give it back when I lost my job.
 
ok, Wes, they have updates for the drivers, so how do i know when they do? do i just need to go to some site and check periodically?

and ya, i can do that SATA 0 thing...i have done it like 10 times now...ugh...

pm sent Wes...
 
first off, if you had to use windows, use XP not vista. vista is a polished turd. next time your buy a computer, buy an intel mac and install XP on a second hard drive partition when you absolutely need to use it
 
As far as the drivers, you would just have to check periodically.

But at this point the computer is beyond that. At -minimum- it needs the OS restored before you could update the drivers.

That might fix it.. But I'd be pretty surprised.
 
i need to fix this one...ugh :facepalm...i dont have $$ laying around to be able to just go and get another comp...let me tell ya, wish i did :rolleyes...but it seems the government doesnt appreciate education and teachers very much, thus cutting taxes to pay us...:facepalm (have no idea where that came from :lol: )...so i need to be able to fix the one i have, and then use the most efficient op system possible that doesnt keep doing this every couple of weeks...(y)
 
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