Dell Inspiron: Windows Vista 32bit

Not sure if this is the appropriate place to start this thread, but at the moment I can't trouble shoot far enough to tell. Help greatly needed tho

System specs off of the System Information page:
Dell Inspiron 1545
BIOS: A13
Installed Memory: 3072MB

• Available: 3032MB
• Speed: 800MHZ
• Channel Mode: Duel
• DDR2

Processer: Celeron(R) Dual-Core 1.8GHz

• 1MB Cache
• 1.8GHz Clock Speed

Hard Drive: 250GB
Integrated NIC: Enabled w/PXE
Boot Sequence:

1. CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive *I changed that myself to try and boot off of CD*
2. Internal HDD
3. Diskette Drive
4. USB Storage Device

Recently I have received a laptop to attempt at getting back to proper working condition. From what I was told about the laptop that it went from working perfectly, to it not properly loading past the black screen with the flashing white _. After getting the laptop I ran it through all possible tests that I was capable of running at the time (diagnostics, system search, and a problem tree) all of these issues ran through the parts in the computer and the only failure that came up was in the hard drive. So going off of this I tried to boot off of an install disc but even that got stuck on the flashing _ screen, both processes (regular boot and drive boot) had all of the fans running as they should of, the cd drive's gears were heard starting up like normal, internal fans are flowing smoothly. System is running at a healthy internal temp.

After fixing many other laptops, it greatly bothered me that this one is the first one to stump me. But I would really appreciate any help that can be given to assist me with figuring out how to fix this myself or if I should just give it back and tell him to ship it out for someone else to fix.

Will it start in safe mode with command prompt
If so try rebuilding the master boot record

Start the computer in safe mode with command prompt
Open command prompt and Type C: and press enter
at the C:\ prompt type cd boot
At the C:\Boot prompt type the following and press enter after each
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildBcd
Close command prompt and resart your computer in normal mode.

The only things I can access is the Setup section and the Bios Start section

Just noticed that when I don't try accessing either of those options the laptop just shuts off. It is plugged in so its not the battery dying

Hi skipskip94,

If the diagnostics has any error message for hard drive it would need a replacement hard drive.

We can try few steps to ensure that the DVD drive is working fine:
1. Remove the hard drive on the computer (providing the manual link for reference: Documentation)
2. Then boot from the disc.
3. Check if the computer is able to go past blinking cursor.
4. If issue persists, check with a different Operating System disc (if available).

Please post back with the results.

Have you tried a BIOS update?

Does BIOS show the system clock keeping the correct time? If not, the CMOS cell could need replacing for her to keep track of the hardware correctly. (Even if the battery is okay, pulling it will let you perform a CMOS reset - the magic cure for a lot of boot-time problems)

Have you tried bread-boarding the motherboard - to remove the possibility of the board shorting or flexing?

And the most obvious thing - do you have a spare hard-drive you can bung in? If it gets past the BIOS screen - even if only to tell you that there's no O/S installed, you'll have a fair idea what the problem is. If you can get that far, you could always install a copy of Windows - no need to activate it as you're only trying to see if it will install and run. Along the same lines - have you tried accessing that drive from a working pc - bung it into a USB case if necessary (cases only cost a couple of quid on ebay and their a good ting to keep around).