The Official Computer Tech Support Thread

[Freebase Dali]

Originally Posted by ThePhanastasio

Thanks - that's what I was afraid I'd have to do, although I really wanted to save some of the files on the computer. Fortunately, the really important ones are backed up and safely available elsewhere for me. Just a lot of music I don't want to have to download again.

I'm probably going to go for Windows 7 as the OS. I hate Vista.

If Dell made a recovery partition on your PC, you might be able to run startup repair from that. Have you tried using that option?

Also, you can try using the advanced boot options. Usually this key is F8 (although it could be different on your machine) and you repeatedly hit it after you turn on the computer, until you get to a boot screen that displays Safe mode, etc.. On that list there's an option to use "last known good configuration". Choose that and see if there's any difference.

If all fails, you may still be able to get in and retrieve your files. There's a program called ERD Commander (you'll have to find the one for Vista) that should come as a .iso file, and you burn it onto a CD/DVD as a bootable disk (nero can do this) then simply boot up to the disk and select your OS, and it will give you access to your file system, among other things, where you can then do any backups necessary.