A Fun Vista Puzzle For You - Is My Dell Done?

Hey there, I apologize in advance if this thread is redundant. I've spent a lot of time sifting through articles, and have not found any of them to pertain to my situation.

I started seeing a windows update error that was 80070422, or something like that. After reading up about it for a bit I went into my system restore and went to the oldest restore point, to no avail.

I then tried a repair of windows vista, but for some reason, my computer didn't want to let me do that. So, I had to do a new installation of windows home premium. I backed up all of my important files and everything was rolling along smoothly during the install until it got to "expanding files." It stopped at 27% and hasn't been the same since.

At first, I tried to simply start up windows normally, and the initial Vista startup progress bar just rotates over and over ad infinitum.

I have tried following the advice on many of the threads here, and nothing has worked.

Safe Mode gets stuck a few seconds into the process.

I tried a startup repair, and it never finishes. The last part of the details log looks like this:

Test Performed:
----------------------
Name: Event log diagnosis
Result: Started but not completed

I ran chkdsk and what I got seemed pretty normal. The things that I thought might be abnormal said:

"CHKDSK discovered free space marked a allocated in the master file table <MFT> bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system."

and

"Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50.

X:\Sources>"

I have also tried the Vista Recovery Disk Download, to no avail.

Any additional attempts at a re-install of Vista copies windows files, but then freezes on "Expanding files" right at 0%.

Through all of these processes, it seems like the computer wants to start, but just gets stuck somewhere. This laptop is barely over a year old. It's really frustrating to have it poop out like this. Any ideas? I hope someone can help. I dropped a lot of cash on this thing, and have lost my job since and can't possibly afford to get another one any time soon.

Thanks so much for any advice that you may have.

After writing all of this, my computer seems to have forged ahead a bit on the install, and it now is getting stuck on "completing installation."

So strange.

 

Do you have a hidden recovery partition on your Dell?

 

Yes, there is a partition, but I'm not sure how to get access to it.

 

on restart, start tapping the F12 key, that will bring up a boot menu, it should show you the partition there, it could be a restore partition OR a diagnostic partition.

 

I'm pretty sure it's a recovery partition. When I put in the reinstallation disk for Vista, it asked where I wanted to install it, and there is a partition labeled 'Recovery.'

When I press F12 to access the boot menu, I see the following:

Use the up- and down- arrow keys to move the pointer to the desired boot device. Press(Enter) to attempt the boot or ESC to cancel.

Internal HDD
CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive
Onboard NIC

BIOS Setup
Diagnostics

 

Ctrl + F11 is used on a lot of newer Dells to restore using the hidden partition.

If you state your exact model, I will check if your computer uses this key combo.

 

Thank you plodr,

My computer is a dell inspiron 1720.

Thanks again so much.

 

http://support.dell.com/support/top...6D00643D874E2517E040AE0AB6E15C37&docid=336966
if you scroll down to step 3, it appears that for the Inspiron 1720, F8 is the correct key to press before windows starts to load.

 

Thanks! I'll try this and see if it works!