program that will boot from CD and will format hard drive and check for errors. i tried to reinstall vista on a dell labtop and it failed at the point when it starts up for the first time and u enter a user name.

need to service the hard drive. it actually hasnt been used (rarely) its been in a closet for some time.

what is that combination performing, its at 70% of last stage, once finish do i re-install or see if it boots

Originally Posted by theog

Originally Posted by eldinv

what is that combination performing, its at 70% of last stage, once finish do i re-install or see if it boots

/f = Fixes error
/x = take drive offline.
/r = do surface scan, check file integrity & fix any problems found.
/v = verbose mode, display what CHKDSK is doing.

kwel. it finish but still doesnt boot after displaying microsoft splash screen it quickly shows a blue screens and reboots, i accidentally deleted the dell partition that contains the recovery image. so now im screwed and probably need a new drive. weird because this labtop is basically new hardly ever used and just sitting in a closet. i dont see how the hard drive would fail. ive got old hard drives that are probably 8 years old and sill work. im looking online for a dell copy of vista no luck. im install ubuntu 10.04 if that works and updates. do u still think it could be the hard drive. i was using a gateway OEM copy of Vista thinking once it installed i could just enter the product key on the labtop

A Gateway OEM copy of Vista will NOT WORK on a Dell.

You can order Recovery DVD's from Dell, (may be a postage fee)

Originally Posted by theog

A Gateway OEM copy of Vista will NOT WORK on a Dell.

You can order Recovery DVD's from Dell, (may be a postage fee)

anyhow it appears drive is bad, install Ubuntu. and it somewhat installed then i went to disc ultlity and it says there are a few bad sectors.

it would work it just doesnt activate windows, because it will notice a different oem bios. u would be force to enter product key. if i had the oem dell, it would install automatically and wont require activation.

ive used different oems cds/dvds on different system as long as u have a good key your good. but there something wrong with drive so i guess i have to look for a replacement or a program that will run from boot and try and repair sectors.

Post 2

Originally Posted by theog

Post 2

i did above but i guess the hard drive is bad cause it didnt fix

Originally Posted by eldinv

Originally Posted by theog

Post 2

i did above but i guess the hard drive is bad cause it didnt fix

Have done one as well.

Check with a hard drive diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.