Black screen with cursor problem. Need Help

simrick · 06 Apr 2016

jlv said:

Nothing ever seems to go right. lol

Well, I deleted everything on the USB. Reformated it and verified that it is FAT32. Plugged it back into the dead computer and got the same thing all over again. Missing operating system. I haven't tried it in my good computer again, but I just have a feeling that its not going to work. This USB stick is brand new. I just bought it last month and put a few documents on it.

Just a thought - wondering if the hard drive has died? You said you have one computer running Ubuntu, so you are familiar with that. Do you have a disk of Ubuntu? You could pop that in the DVD drive of the 1545 and set the BIOS to boot from the optical drive, and see if you can run the "live" version. If you can, once you get to the Ubuntu desktop, it will immediately tell you if the hard drive has failed.

You said you were able to run Dell diagnostics through F12 - were you able to run hard drive health, and did it check out okay?

OldMike65 · 06 Apr 2016

Either the usb is bad.....or the iso is bad.....only thing I can think of....

jlv · 06 Apr 2016

Someone else put the Ubuntu on the other laptop. The HD on that system failed and I bought a new one and refused to give Microsoft any more of my money for their operating system as I have nothing but prob with our computers since Windows 10 came out and they no longer support Vista and XP. I never had any prob with W7 or XP and hate switching over. So I converted one laptop to Ubuntu and the other is a Chromebook. My wife has Vista and my son has W10. This W10 computer was my daughters until it died so I gave her my Ubuntu. I use Chromebook for just email, but I need my W10 for my stock trading account.

I am running the diagnosis again on the dead computer and I seen something about the HD test that said "Pass" for "DST Short Test". Not sure if any other test were done like the "Health". I don't see where I have the ability to scroll down all the test that were done.

simrick said:

Just a thought - wondering if the hard drive has died? You said you have one computer running Ubuntu, so you are familiar with that. Do you have a disk of Ubuntu? You could pop that in the DVD drive of the 1545 and set the BIOS to boot from the optical drive, and see if you can run the "live" version. If you can, once you get to the Ubuntu desktop, it will immediately tell you if the hard drive has failed.

You said you were able to run Dell diagnostics through F12 - were you able to run hard drive health, and did it check out okay?

OldMike65 · 06 Apr 2016

Try any bootable usb drive you got that you KNOW works.....on another computer. Don't care what it is. THEN take that same bootable usb and try it on the broken computer. Something is wrong, and I don't know what it is. Only way is to test your bootable usb on another computer that works.

simrick · 06 Apr 2016

Mike, what do you think if he tries making the USB drive with RUFUS?

OldMike65 · 06 Apr 2016

simrick said:

Mike, what do you think if he tries making the USB drive with RUFUS?

Sure that would be fine too. I would just like him to try it in his good computer too, just to check that at least it works on a computer that is working.

You could even try this program to see if it boots from your good computer 1st.
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk

This always boots also a good program to have handy sometimes too. :)

cflusflwfl · 06 Apr 2016

It sounds like you just copied the Windows 10 files over to the usb drive. This will not work, as it is not being flagged as being bootable. You need to go to a working computer and go here: Windows 10

About half way down the page is a download for the Windows Media Creation Tool. It will download and install Windows 10 onto your usb and make it bootable. When done, plug into the failing computer and boot from it.

OldMike65 · 06 Apr 2016

cflusflwfl said:

It sounds like you just copied the Windows 10 files over to the usb drive. This will not work, as it is not being flagged as being bootable. You need to go to a working computer and go here: Windows 10

About half way down the page is a download for the Windows Media Creation Tool. It will download and install Windows 10 onto your usb and make it bootable. When done, plug into the failing computer and boot from it.

Sorry but if done correctly it does WORK, done this many many times. The one from Tech Bench. Have one right here now on one of my usb's, boots just fine. Just by copying the files unto any USB drive.

cflusflwfl · 06 Apr 2016

You are right that if done correctly it will work. I have used different tools to make an iso bootable from a usb drive. For someone not used to doing that the easiest way may be by using the Windows Media Creation Tool.

OldMike65 said:

Sorry but if done correctly it does WORK, done this many many times. The one from Tech Bench. Have one right here now on one of my usb's boots just fine.

simrick · 06 Apr 2016

cflusflwfl said:

It sounds like you just copied the Windows 10 files over to the usb drive. This will not work, as it is not being flagged as being bootable. You need to go to a working computer and go here: Windows 10

About half way down the page is a download for the Windows Media Creation Tool. It will download and install Windows 10 onto your usb and make it bootable. When done, plug into the failing computer and boot from it.

OldMike65 said:

Sorry but if done correctly it does WORK, done this many many times. The one from Tech Bench. Have one right here now on one of my usb's boots just fine.

Mike is right. It does work using the TechBench ISO. We've got something else going on with this thing. That's why I suggested RUFUS and Mike suggested the Recovery Boot Disk from Kyhi.

I agree Mike, he needs to establish a working, bootable media of some sort on a good computer first, then take that to the ailing one.