Dell M6600 cant find operating system.

[MINIman04]

Dell m6600 lost the operating system. Tried reinstalling it and it will run as long as the windows program is on a USB memory stick. If you unplug it and try to restart the computer without it, it wont run and can not see it. Is this laptop no good anymore?

 

[bambiboom]

Dell m6600 lost the operating system. Tried reinstalling it and it will run as long as the windows program is on a USB memory stick. If you unplug it and try to restart the computer without it, it wont run and can not see it. Is this laptop no good anymore?

MINIman04,

1. This may be a case of HD failure. When the system is running off the USB drive, is the installed drive containing the C: partition visible in Win Explorer? The BIOS must still be OK, so you could first start to setup and have a look at the drives listed.

2. If the C: drive is visible, and/or you've made any changes to drives lately, double check the boot order, and set it to start first on the drive containing Windows and secondly on the USB so you can get back in.

The M6600 is as near to a bulletproof laptop as possible, so it's much more likely to be a drive failing or failed, especially if it's mechanical.


Cheers,

BambiBoom