endless booting and now can't restore macrium

I've made some headway in knowledge but not anywhere near a solution. I now understand why the macrium usb boot drive behaves differently than Kyhi usb drive or Windows install disk. I made the macrium from a different laptop ( i know I should have done it per laptop). This one was missing the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (IASTORAV.sys) driver. When I add it manually to the macrium boot drive , I get consistent behavior across all my different boot devices ie BSOD with page fault in non paged area - iastorav.sys.

Before I start dismantling this laptop, any ideas on how to solve this? It sure does sound like if I can restore an older image I can be mostly functional til i buy a new ssd.

Please update the progress with post #20.

If you can open windows RE command prompt then troubleshooting can be performed.

Hi zbook,

As I mentioned in post #1, I cannot boot (3 different recovery usb and main drive either). So cannot answer most of your requests in post #20. As for ram modules and drives, I have to take the laptop apart to take a look. Hoping to delay this as someone might have software ideas. As for ubuntu, it's a great idea but I need to purchase another usb stick to do it.

Hoping someone has ideas about iastorav.sys. I think dalchina also suggested to remove the main drive and see if it boots.

Were you able to run the Dell preboot diagnostics > post images into the thread

Opening Windows recovery on the computer or using a bootable Windows 10 iso enables troubleshooting iastorav.sys.

zbook said:

Were you able to run the Dell preboot diagnostics > post images into the thread

Opening Windows recovery on the computer or using a bootable Windows 10 iso enables troubleshooting iastorav.sys.

As for bootable windows iso, isn't that what I tried in post #1?

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Bastet said:

Have you tried the F12 suggestion yet?

This is the only screen I ever get. something to do?

Bastet said:

Was the Macrium boot USB inserted when you tried F12?
If not then the boot media needs to be inserted, restart the PC & spam F12 to (hopefully) start from the USB.

I have now attempted this 8-9 times and all I ever get is the Macrium screen.