Computer savy people please help!

[Skiman]

Talked to Dell customer service rep today. Said I'd need a windows disk that came with my laptop. I told him I never got one and he basically called me a liar. Then said without the warranty I could not get a new one from them. Warranty expired february. Warranty renewal is $340 something. Then he said I could buy a copy of windows 7 and try reinstalling it myself but it could be a hard drive error. In which case I'd have to buy a new hard drive and install it. Conveniently their warranty covers the replacement disc and a new HD if I needed one.

So looks like my only option is to renew the warranty. All solutions I've found online have failed.

Sorry to hear about your dilemma, looks like the guys here have all suggested mostly everything that you could do, unless you knew someone that has a Win7 disk then it might allow you to boot into that recovery disk partition option and run the setup from the command prompt via DOS with the "RESTORE" feature. That's what Dell did anyway with the recovery partition with most of their PC's or factory setups.

Do you know what type of Win7 you had, you might get buy cheaper by buying the operating system from Best Buy or whatever eletronic store is near you. I know Best Buy sells there Ulimate Windows 7 edition for $319.00, at least that is cheaper than the $350 Dell is wanting to renew your warranty for and will more probably not get a disk with that warranty either, they might just tell you to send it in and they'll restore it to factory default settings and send it back to you without a disk. If you bought the operating system from a store at least you have a disk that you could always fall back on if this were to happen again. Also if you ever do get this up, create a restore point on the accessories menu option as the very first thing you do whenever operating the PC. That way there's a "last know good configuration" restore point on the system that Windows is in control with instead of relying on the DELL manufacturer software that's on the partition.

Windows 7 Home Premium

Windows 7 Professional

Windows 7 Ultimate

 

[THX-182]

Hey guys. Thanks for the feedback. I did dispute the charge with Dell and have a refund on the way. As for this headache, I am such an idiot. I in fact did receive two discs with my laptop. One for Windows 7 and the other had all the Alienware/Windows drivers on it. I managed to locate them where I keep my iMac backup and installation discs. Why I never looked there first I'll never know. I suppose it was because I moved recently and usually keep those discs with the box and packaging my computer came in and they weren't in the laptop's box.

Anyway, I loaded and reinstalled Windows 7 was able to setup and get in and downloaded the drivers. I'm up and running. Not exactly like it was before but probably because the drivers have been updated and I've yet to get all the pre-loaded Alienware backgrounds and pics and stuff loaded. So I'm up and running! Typing this post on my laptop right now.

Thank you to everyone who offered suggestions and took the time to look into this error. I don't know what caused it and I wish I had a better way to fix it than having to wipe the computer but alas...

Moral of this tale is to always KEEP THE DISCS THAT COME WITH THE COMPUTER IN A SAFE PLACE! You never think you'll need it until you do.

Take care of yourselves and each other.

 

[Darth Cruel]

Hey guys. Thanks for the feedback. I did dispute the charge with Dell and have a refund on the way. As for this headache, I am such an idiot. I in fact did receive two discs with my laptop. One for Windows 7 and the other had all the Alienware/Windows drivers on it. I managed to locate them where I keep my iMac backup and installation discs. Why I never looked there first I'll never know. I suppose it was because I moved recently and usually keep those discs with the box and packaging my computer came in and they weren't in the laptop's box.

Anyway, I loaded and reinstalled Windows 7 was able to setup and get in and downloaded the drivers. I'm up and running. Not exactly like it was before but probably because the drivers have been updated and I've yet to get all the pre-loaded Alienware backgrounds and pics and stuff loaded. So I'm up and running! Typing this post on my laptop right now.

Thank you to everyone who offered suggestions and took the time to look into this error. I don't know what caused it and I wish I had a better way to fix it than having to wipe the computer but alas...

Moral of this tale is to always KEEP THE DISCS THAT COME WITH THE COMPUTER IN A SAFE PLACE! You never think you'll need it until you do.

Take care of yourselves and each other.

I'll tell you something. This whole thing sounds incredibly like something that happened to me.

Now that you have the OS re-installed...if it takes a dump again soon...that is what happened to me. I had to replace my hard drive.

 

[joebizz34]

Agreed. At some point you may want to run a diagnostics test on your hard drive and make sure it doesn't come back with any physical errors indicating a problem.

Other than that, I'm glad to hear you are back up and running.

Good Luck.

 

[darthviper107]

Talked to Dell customer service rep today. Said I'd need a windows disk that came with my laptop. I told him I never got one and he basically called me a liar. Then said without the warranty I could not get a new one from them. Warranty expired february. Warranty renewal is $340 something. Then he said I could buy a copy of windows 7 and try reinstalling it myself but it could be a hard drive error. In which case I'd have to buy a new hard drive and install it. Conveniently their warranty covers the replacement disc and a new HD if I needed one.

So looks like my only option is to renew the warranty. All solutions I've found online have failed.

It would be cheaper than $340 to buy a new hard drive and a copy of Windows