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Laptop Help! Can't Format


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Happy Easter everyone and may all your chocolate eggs be halal certified! :p

 

My 4yo now uses my old Dell Inspiron N7110 Laptop that runs on Windows 7. She keeps clicking on links to games via YouTube and now the laptop is constantly having problems with malware.

 

I decided to format it but I can not get it to boot from the DVD drive where I inserted the Windows 7 DVD. I hit F12 on the menu screen and nothing. I can get into the Bios by hitting F2 instead and even set it to boot from DVD in the boot priority menu but still no go.

 

Any ideas? I am wondering if some malware or virus has disabled the boot menu to stop the PC being formatted? I have formatted it in the past and don't recall having any problems.

 

Thanks in advance for any help and please, no nerdy, pointless comments like "I don't have any of these problems on my Mac" or "You should be running Linux". It's just an old lap top for a 4yo to watch YouTube clips and play games!

 

Cheers,

 

Lefty

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Is the Optical drive actually reading the disc? When you try and boot from the drive with a disk in does the boot sequence actually allow for the disc to spin up and attempt a read? If you can boot into Windows, try and read a disk in the drive. If you can't, the lens might need a quick clean. Alternatively, if the optical drive is in fact faulty (or even if it is not), consider using a USB stick which has been formatted with a bootable OS on it (like your Windows 7). Report back if you have no success & we will escalate your call to our level 2 help desk.
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Doesnt it have the windows on the hard disk drives second partition? laptops usually have a hidden partition that only contains the window settup.

that usually the case with laptops these days, you dont actually use the windows disk. you usually have to enter it in bootup and install windows straight from the hard drive partition not the disk. From memory it was pressing f12 in bootup

My toshiba's are like that I thought Dell was the same??

 

oh i believe you cant boot from disk because of a security feature like "secure boot" or some nerdy shit like that.

Edited by jason1
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I don't know anything about laptops, all I have are desktop PC's.

But a couple of years ago my then 12 year old son got a malware infection on his PC from Youtube links.

I downloaded Malwarebytes and ran that in safe mode. Cleaned up the problems quick smart.

It's free and it works.

Not sure if it will help you, but it might.

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Is the Optical drive actually reading the disc? When you try and boot from the drive with a disk in does the boot sequence actually allow for the disc to spin up and attempt a read? If you can boot into Windows, try and read a disk in the drive. If you can't, the lens might need a quick clean. Alternatively, if the optical drive is in fact faulty (or even if it is not), consider using a USB stick which has been formatted with a bootable OS on it (like your Windows 7). Report back if you have no success & we will escalate your call to our level 2 help desk.

 

Good idea, just tried a music CD and it boots and works no problem.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I don't know anything about laptops, all I have are desktop PC's.

But a couple of years ago my then 12 year old son got a malware infection on his PC from Youtube links.

I downloaded Malwarebytes and ran that in safe mode. Cleaned up the problems quick smart.

It's free and it works.

Not sure if it will help you, but it might.

 

Yep, got that. The free premium trial ended so we are back on the basic version. I have to run it every few days other wise the laptop becomes unusable with pop-ups that can't be closed.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Doesnt it have the windows on the hard disk drives second partition? laptops usually have a hidden partition that only contains the window settup.

that usually the case with laptops these days, you dont actually use the windows disk. you usually have to enter it in bootup and install windows straight from the hard drive partition not the disk. From memory it was pressing f12 in bootup

My toshiba's are like that I thought Dell was the same??

 

oh i believe you cant boot from disk because of a security feature like "secure boot" or some nerdy shit like that.

 

You might be right, with several laptops, desktops and tablets maybe I haven't formatted this lap top via the Windows disc before. Might be getting it mixed up with another device. Might check the manual for any instructions on formatting.

 

Yep, tried hitting the F12 but nothing happens.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

Dead Link?

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Try pressing F8 when booting up, that should give you some options.

 

I'll try that next...

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OK, I have escalated your problem to our level 2 Help Desk.

 

With the laptop booted into Windows, check that you can correctly read the Windows 7 DVD (eg - does it autoplay correctly and or can you read the data on it?). If not, check the DVD for marks/scratches that might be preventing it from being read - clean accordingly or create a new one.

 

If you have access to a working PC and a spare USB drive, create yourself a bootable USB drive with your OS of choice (again - plenty of YouTube walk throughs & tutorials online how to do this).

You may need to change your boot sequence on your laptop in order that the ESB drive is listed BEFORE your internal HDD/SDD.

 

Also, as others have suggested if your internal HDD still contains the factory partitions, you could use the methods at the following URL to do a clean restore.

http://www.dell.com/support/Article/us/en/19/SLN151763/EN

 

Please report back if these methods are unsuccessful and we will escalate your problem to a level 3 (please note level 4 involves a sledgehammer, your laptop and lots of swearing).

 

:)

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I had a similar issue with an Asus notebook and had to do it the hard way and install XP service pack 3 and go from there...

Vista would be better as i am not sure if you can install win 7 from all versions of xp sp3

 

Download a bootable version of win xp just to test if it will boot from the dvd drive..

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