Closed loop when booting into Ultimate.

Recently, I upgraded to Ultimate from Home Premium. It was successful and has worked as well as Vista ever does for some time. Then I noticed the large system restore entries on my disk drive and as the drive was untidy, I did a defrag using VOPT 8. After waiting for over four hours, I had to switch the PC off.

The PC rebooted OK but to be on the safe side I decided to re-instal. Since then, when I boot up, the PC goes into a closed loop from which there is no apparent escape. It starts up with my icon on screen which when clicked, reports a file missing or corrupt. It will then only respond to the OK button presented which then closes the PC down. The three key trick or a normal re-start, put the same loop up again. In the last two days, I have tried every key combination possible but to no avail. It apparently reads the floppy, (I can hear it stepping the tracks.) but neither it or inserting a CD produces anything.

I am like a man locked out of his house with the keys inside. If only I could get in side and get my keys, I could get it. Grrrrrhhh! Has anyone any idea where I go from here?

Frank

Hi Frank, and welcome to the forums,

Have a look at the tutorial here which, with the links at the bottom to other tutorials, covers a lot of options

as for the disk thrashing of the floppy check the boot order in the BIOS

hope this helps you find your keys

Thanks Barman58, But I CANNOT get out of the loop. Nothing lets me escape it. I cannot enter the BIOS screen. The computer responds only to the buttons mentioned above and returns to the same useless screen. The BIOS was originally set to check for the floppy first.

Frank

ouch!

is this a desktop or laptop?

Desktop would be easier, as only thing I can think of is a physical solution such as resetting the BIOS or disconnecting the floppy - if it's not seen hopefully the bios will skip it.

Another thought - do you have or can you obtain an old boot floppy - images are available on-line - if you can get to the system to start reading the floppy then maybe the old three key may then work

this is a weird one and not being able to see the system obviously limits what I can suggest.

When you say you get your icon what are we talking about ?

Hi effpeetee,

Here is a link to the 'Owners Manual' for your computer. Click on 'Appendix' and then scroll down and follow the instructions in the section 'Clearing CMOS Settings'. This will restore the settings in the BIOS to their default values, and should allow you to enter BIOS setup routine.

Documentation

When you say you get your icon what are we talking about ?

Click to expand...

The user icon with my name on it.

Frank

Dwarf, Thanks for the info. I'll look into it tomorrow.

Off to Bye-byes!

Frank

EDIT: Thursday AM:
Carried out the procedure recommended. Remove password jumper and put on the other pins. Now the computer does not work at all. Just to forestall a possible question. Yes I did disconnect from the mains first.

It's back to DELL I think. Fortunately I have two other PCs.

Sorry Dwarf, but it did not work. Back to square one. At first as above, it stopped the PC from coming on at all. And then, leter reverted to its previous behaviour

Frank

Hi Frank,

Sorry to hear still no joy, do you have data on the pc? just thinking you could try remoting into the machine when it's awaiting your OK, (or with your icon on-screen), or maybe move the drive to one of your other PC's to access the drive that way.

Just a thought and hope you get it resolved

assuming they, [Dell], solve the problem post back and let us know their findings.

all the best

Hi effpeetee,

Sorry to hear that you are still having problems. Here is another link, this time to 'Removing and Installing Parts'. Scroll down to 'Coin-Cell Battery' for instructions on how to remove it. Sometimes, removing the battery is the only sure-fire method of clearing any erroneous data in the BIOS/CMOS. It is possible to run the system without this battery, it just behaves as though the battery is dead. Wait a few minutes before powering up your system to allow any capacitors on the board to discharge themselves. If this helps, then replace the battery.
If you are still having problems, then you will need to switch into trouble-shooting mode. Follow the instructions given in the link, and disconnect and reconnect everything on the board. It is possible that a faulty connection is causing your problem, and this can help to eliminate it.

Documentation

Hello Dwarf.

The PC boots into the normal entry screen with my log on icon waiting for me to choose it. Nothing going in is able to get a response.

One thing that does stand out is, my normal BIOS screen, which would enable me to F2 and get into the bios, or F12 and let me boot from a CD, does not appear. It goes straight into the Vista page. I have contacted DELL, whose support page seems designed to get one fed up with trying to get a meaningful response. When and If I get something to report, I will be back. Don't hold your breath though.

Frank

Hi Frank,

It sounds as though your BIOS has possibly become corrupted somehow. Refer to the link in my previous post (repeated below for convenience) and disconnect everything on the motherboard (see the section 'System Board Components'). Also remove the battery as described. The only things you should leave attached on the board are the power leads, the processor and heatsink/fan assembly and ONE stick of RAM in the first memory slot (this is the one that is nearest the processor). The front panel leads also need to be attached. If you don't have on-board graphics, then you will need your graphics card installed and also any supplementary power cables required by the card. Disconnect all power cables from your optical and hard drive(s). Power up your system. Are you able to get into your BIOS now? If not, then it looks as though your board has a serious problem with it. If, however, you can, then you need to start replacing and testing components. Start with the rest of the RAM, 1 stick at a time. Next, the optical drive(s) followed by floppy and lastly hard drive(s). You should only add ONE component at a time. If, at any time, the problem re-occurs and you are no longer able to enter your BIOS, that indicates that the most recent component is faulty. Check this by removing it and rebooting. It is possible that a faulty component is preventing the POST routine in the BIOS from executing correctly and therefore stopping the prompt from appearing. Don't overlook the keyboard and mouse and the possibility of cable damage. Check this by substituting with known good components.
As well as the link to the documentation, I also enclose a link to the support forum for the XPS Desktops series. Have a browse through this to see if you can come up with anything. If not, you can post your query there, but you will need to register first.

Documentation

XPS Desktops - Dell Community Forum

Hello Dwarf,
Thanks for your help. At the moment I am waiting for a response from Dell.
I still feel that this is a software thing. It happened after I had re-installed Vista Ultimate. This was because a defrag program had messed up due to the shadow sections which it read as fragments.
After leaving the defrag program for over five hours, I had to switch off the PC.
Apparently it did no harm, but as a precaution, I decided to re-instal Vista. That is when my troubles started.
The boot up obviously instals the operating system and displays the normal logon screen complete with my logon icon. If I click the icon, as I have already told, the system reboots back to the same screen with the addition of the disabled selection icon in the bottom left corner. This displays and works correctly so that I have been able to try the on screen keyboard and sticky keys option. These work OK. But none of the normal short cut options respond. Just goes around the same old loop.

I will try the battery as soon as I can get one. However, my meter says that it is OK. I think that Vista could have done better than this. If the Profile Service was not available, why could it not load a preselected one of its own make up. Does nobody at MS think these things through. I have tried an MSDOS floppy which appears to load in. The drive runs and the tracks click, but nothing appears on screen.

I have only had the PC since the end of February and it has been OK until this latest re-instal. Hopefully Dell will contact me soon. I'll keep in touch.

Frank

Hi Frank,

Have you got a suitable external hard drive enclosure that you can use to put the HDD in from this machine so that you can access it from one of your other PCs? If you have, try to see if you can access it. Try formatting it as you would a USB flash drive using, if possible, an alternative filing system (FAT32 as opposed to NTFS) and permorm a FULL and not a quick format. When the format has finished, try saving a small text file to it and see if you are able to retrieve it (it doesn't matter what text you use - you could even copy the text in this post and use that). Do you get any errors if you compare the original with the copy you load off the disk? If this passes, then use disk management (http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/95418-disk-management-delete-extend.html - see STEP ONE 'To Delete a Partition') to delete the partition on this drive, effectively making it blank. Whilst you are doing that, is the faulty PC able to start up and allow you to enter the BIOS without the HDD being present? I am beginning to wonder if this defrag program you have used has somehow managed to corrupt the BIOS firmware. You did have the BIOS write protection ENABLED, I presume? This is totally different to the CMOS which stores the configuration data and which is maintained by the button cell battery. The BIOS firmware is the program that is built-in to the BIOS and which, on modern PCs, can be upgraded by downloading a file and running a specific installation program. It is this program that runs when you power your system up, and it is responsible for determining the hardware of your system. All of the initial text on the screen (with the exception of that pertaining to your graphics adapter) comes from the data within the firmware, so it is possible that if this doesn't appear on screen that it has become corrupted.
There is something else that you could try first. It is possible that the USB legacy in the BIOS has been set to 'Disabled' which in itself would prevent you from entering the BIOS if you are using a USB keyboard. Try using a PS/2 device to see if that makes any difference.
If you have managed to get into your BIOS, then reconnect your now blank HDD and try again to install Vista on it. DO NOT connect to the Internet whilst you are installing.

Hi Dwarf.

I am pretty certain the the hard drive is being accessed. It does load the Vista Ultimate opening screen every time. As to the keyboard, I have tried using the onscreen one provided by Vista, but with the same results.

I have received back from Dell. They tell me to do what you suggested and which I have already done. They are as bad as MS, they give me a multi choice screen which is not relevant to my problem. I cannot answer the question and if I don't I cannot continue with their questionaire. What is wrong with these programmers? Why not a "None of these" selector?

I am beginning to despair. I am having to keep changing computers over. I have only limited space and one monitor. Even the encoded beeps don't help. I get two beeps. That is not included in their list. Still I am at least in touch with them, hopefully I will eventually get a useful response from them.

Regards.

Frank