My computer froze up while on the internet. I shut it down. When I turned it back on it will not go past the BIOS screen. I tried F2 set up and it just shows "Preparing to enter setup". Will not ever get there... So then I try F12, "Preparing one time boot menu. again never goes there. I've turn on by holding the on button and sleep button at the same time, this indicates Diagnostic Boot Selected. Still nothing! Please someone give me some advice. Is my hard drive just dead?
laptopdrama 0 Newbie Poster
gerbil 216 Industrious Poster
Ummm... possibly not.... if it was, BIOS just would not list it. As a next step I would check for BIOS corruption - power down your sys at the wall, remove the CMOS battery for five/ten minutes, reinsert and try to boot again.
another option is to read your mb manual - it may refer to a tiny jumper you can place in another socket for a moment.
Keep the side of the box off.... because it may also be a RAM problem. Power off at the wall, remove the sticks one by one and try each time. Ground your hands to the machine chassis before you touch the mb.
MDKellar 0 Newbie Poster
Your Hard drive is ok , I think.The issue is with your bios .There is no cmos battery to remove unless you remove the MB and cut or solder it off...fixed battery. There is also no Jumper for this laptop. And once you get your laptop back up and running , you can check your hard drive by clicking on my computer and right clicking on properties and uptop you will see tools and click on check for errors but for now lets do this........
Make sure you have nothing in your cd drive and Power down laptop, remove power adapter and remove the battery from the side. Then hold down your power button for 20 seconds. This should help reset.Replace ac and battery and boot up, do not hit anything and see what you get.. might boot to hard drive If this doesn't work, remove everything cd drive , hard drive battery etc and repeat the 20 second power button hold down and then reboot with nothing else replaced but the ac adapter. If your bios comes up it should state , primary hard drive not found and then give you the choice to enter set up. If you have a resource cd , you can turn off your laptop , unplug you battery and ac and repeat the 20 second power button , replace your cd/dvd and power back up, pick F2 or F12 , open your cd player and put in your resource cd then pick your cd to boot first and save changes.. run a diagnostics program.
If everything works out, power down, repeat steps for 20 second power button and replace everything and restart some times all comps act up .There are other things that can be done as well. But after all test, it is what it is and sometimes the motherboard has to be replaced, or a new bios chip installed or flashed
You can email me at MDKellar@aol.com if I can help any1 with these Dell Inspiron 5150 laptops . Hope this helps
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