Laptop Crashed - Stuck during booting

[Riverson1986]

Hey guys,

I have a Dell Inspiron 15 Laptop, Intel CPU, 4gb ram, 320gb hdd, Windows Vista, using McAfee antivirus... No issues or problems after months of use until yesterday.

I was browsing some photos, and a few messages popped up from windows alerting me that certain functions had stopped working and windows explorer had to end task... Eventually a Blue error screen apeared with writing all over it, and my laptop had to restart...

I am given two options:

A) Windows repair mode (reccomended)
B) Start Windows normally

when I chose A, the screen goes black and nothing happens, I tried leaving it for 15-20 minutes and nothing, just a black screen.

when I choose B, the Dell logo appears and the computer begins to boot up, but then restarts and I am back to square one...

I am at a dead and and I do not know what to do, I am currently in Thailand on holiday and all my photos and videos are on my hard disk... I really hope I can get windows back up and running, I would hate to lose all those memories from my trip :(

Any ideas on what I can do to help would be greatly appreciated!

Kind regards,

- Riverson1986

[CelestialDog]

have your tried pressing F8 when the computer starts up, you should get a text menu which will let you log into Windows in safe mode, and from there you can recover your files.

Also if you can get into safe mode and the laptop runs fine for an hour or more then its possible the problem could be corrupt system drivers, but if still get the blue screen error when in safe mode it could possibly be faulty memory in your laptop.

Just my few pence worth, I hope you get your files back.

[sonofwheel]

Worst case: If the machine will not boot, it does not mean that the data files are ruined. You can take the hard drive out of the laptop and put it in an external USB enclosure and should be able to copy off your photos and other files to some other computer.

[Riverson1986]

Hey guys thanks for the replies!

I found a contact through a friend in Thailand who works in the IT industry, he is confident he can restore it back to its former status, and that I will not lose my files, which is a huge relief..

I think he will try the following:

A) F8, Safe mode, recover and back up files, then maybe format.
B) Windows Vista DVD, run the recovery after laptop boots from DVD drive
C) Remove hard disk and back up files, format and fresh start.

Just a relief to know that my files will more than likely be retained :)

Thank you for the advice and effort!

[will8787]

I was surfing around the web on my LT, then it froze for like 5 secs, i got this blue screen with qritting all over it then went to a black screen asking me to start windows normally or in safe mode ect ect.
Iv tried every option in booting it up but it keeps going back to the origonal screen.
Please help, i love my lap top!
Kind regards,
Will.

[kes166]

@will8787:

Whats the error on the blue screen? If you can take a screen shot of it and post it here, someone might be able to better help. Without knowing what the error is, it could be a driver error. What's your operating system?

[Shlaa]

Yeah if your continuing to get a blue screen could you fill us in with more details.

Seems that you have already tried bootin in safe mode so no use in suggesting that.

If you have your OS Disk, try booting from it into the 'Recovery Console' and do a 'Chkdsk /r'

[Cowprit]

hi will8787. i think you left out some very important details, like the manufacturer of the lt, its model and the operating sys you are using, we will need to know all those inorder to help. Cheers.