Question Laptop stuck at initial logo

[McRog]

Hi,
So I have a Dell Vostro 3350. It's been with me for some time already, but was still doing great. However as of today it doesn't start up anymore. Upon powering it up the standard Dell loading logo appears with a progress bar that fills roughly until 1/3 and that's all. It doesn't go anywhere past it.
I can't even get into bios or boot settings, since it freezes before that. I am able to press f2 on start-up and can see the option light up just before it freezes.
It happened a week ago as well and then I was able start it up by removing the battery and power cord and discharging the unit by long pressing the power button. Sadly, it doesn't work now anymore.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can still try to do to revive it?

I should also say that I was working on it and it froze suddenly and I had to do a hard restart, from which it didn't recover.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Prostar Computer]

Try pulling the hard drive(s) and see if it lets you into the BIOS setup then. A bad drive will sometimes cause very long delays or lock-ups during POST - should that work, you're looking at having to replace the hard drive and reinstall Windows.

If pulling the drive doesn't work, I'd suggest trying different memory.

 

[McRog]

Hi,
Thanks for the reply.
I've tried your suggestion and unfortunately no change - still freezes half-way through the test.
Since I have two RAM cards, I tried pulling out one or the other and switching slots - no effect.
And while I was at it I also tried powering up the system without the optical drive - again no difference.

What else can I try?