Dell Vostro 3550 Boot issues

[Tesla]

Hi all, last chance saloon.

 

I have a Dell Vostro Laptop that won't boot into anything, it will load Dell Screen then will just load up a screen with a white dash in the corner. If I choose to boot from CD (which i have a win 7 CD...it does the same thing) I'm assuming the mobo is screwed, but does anyone else have any ideas?

 

Thanks

[Steve21]

When you say the white dash do you mean like the blinking cursor/type tool?

 

Sometimes doing a full power drain will resolve that. (Unplug it and hold down the power button when it's turned off/no battery in) - Edit if you can I'd suggest MB battery too

 

Can you get into the Dell diagnostics (F12 menu) ?

 

Steve

[Tesla]

I can get into the BIOS (f2) and boot options (f12)

 

boot options has an option for diagnostics, but again this loads the white cursor (although it isn't flashing!)

 

EDIT: Blimey, for the first time ever that full power down thing seems to have done the trick. Its never worked for me before and i've always assumed it was a silly myth.

 

The laptop did this a couple of weeks ago but i ran a chkdsk on hard drive and then it was working so assumed it was the HD until today. Weird.

Edited November 23, 2015 by Tesla