Dell Inspiron 1545 Factory Restore problems

never die

I've been trying to help a friend with his computer. I'm not sure what he did to it, but everytime he tries to boot up his computer, it will get to the log in screen and then switches to a Blue Screen. I've tried comparing his computer through the compare your computer through the boot options, but everytime I select it it goes to an error page that says:
"Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. If Windows files have been damaged or configured incorrectly, startup Repair can help diagnose and fix the problem."
When we click start launch startup repair, it just brings us back to the same screen.

Do you all have any suggestions?

Spudge

sounds like LSASS corruption to me

Can you boot into safe mode? If so, you may be able to do a system restore from there

never die

Nah, the closest we get is safe mode with command prompt, but none of us know commands. If we try to log on to any other version, it just gives the blue screen of death.

Glirk Dient

If he has the windows disk you can try to do a reinstall. It sounds like windows is corrupted. I would try any repair options the disk might have so your friend can get back any data. If its no big deal it might be easier to just go with a complete reinstall.

MrMonroe

you could try a windows repair, but it sounds more like a hardware problem, like the RAM is mistimed or burning out. (this was the exact behavior of my current desktop until I changed the latency settings) Find a windows disk (or a flash drive) and try a repair installation. If that works, recover any data he needs and then wipe the drive and do a clean installation. If it doesn't work, he should probably send it to Dell if he can, and if he can't, he should think about buying from a more reliable manufacturer in the near future. Working on laptop internals is probably not worth the trouble.

never die

We tried using the discs and that hasn't seemed to work. So sending to Dell is our only option then?

MrMonroe

If it crashed during the repair process, it's almost certainly hardware. If either of you has access to an IT dept., they ought to be able to pull the HDD and allow you to recover your most important files by hooking it up to another computer, (They ought to have the cables for this, at any rate) and then, unless someone else has any ideas, send that shit back to Dell.

never die

I'm on break from school, and their the only IT department I can get ahold of.

Thanks, i'll talk to him tomorrow and see what he wants to do.

thanks!