Dell Vostro 3700 :: Deletes Files From USB Thumb Drive - Bootup Stops Or Freezes
Mar 19, 2013
I've created a MSDOS boot disk on a USB thumb drive for a legacy application. After selecting F12 and booting from the USB thumb drive, the bootup stops or freezes. I'll power off the machine, boot back into windows, and try to read the USB drive. One of two things happen,
A. the drive is corrupted with gobbeldy characters or won recognize at all, or
B. files will be deleted, autoexec.bat, config.sys, command.com
There is no rhyme or reason, I've replicated this 20 times and got different results. I've used 5 different drives, two of which are brand new. Sometimes the laptop will freeze with a solid loud beep. I just was able to find an identical 3700 to test, and the same things are happening.
I've been able to boot this on over 20 different laptops, all core 2 duos, but moving to the core i3 on this 3700, this happens. Unfortunately I have no other newer machine to test this on, although it booted from a 3 month old compaq with an AMD chipset.
I've disabled/enabled the execution bit in bios, other than that what's causing this, I've never seen a BIOS do anything like this before.
I know there are a couple of 3x00 Vostro threads, but some are very long and the other did not seem to have an answer for this question.
First, I am very interested in this new Vostro. It seems a good configuration and design for the price. I especially love the 17" screen at < 6 lbs. Seems too good to be true.
Does anyone have experience with this machine? Is the weight including the battery and everything? It is a pound lighter than the 16" Sony F I am using. I like the F, but this Vostro seems a little more in line for me (PhD, heavy stats and datasets). My wife woul appropriate the Sony if I were to pull the trigger on the Dell.
Also, the i5-520m to i7-???qm (dual to quad, differing clocks and all). I am thinking the i5 may be the way to go. Most of my stuff is not designed for 4-cores, 8 threads, etc.
I have a Dell Vostro 3700 which has developed a fault, it will not charge the battery, and windows just shows as "plugged in, not charging.".I have done my research the past few days so I will clear up the following;I have updated BIOS and installed the Dell Battery Manager in order to activate charging as I know it can be disabled.
I have been in the BIOS menu in order to search for an option to supposedly disable/enable battery charging but there is no option in there (unless I missed it, but I have checked several times).BIOS states "adapter type" to be "unknown" and when laptop is first turned on I get a warning to say the adapter cannot be determined and the battery may not charge (which I am assuming leads to the problem).
I have another dell laptop (Studio 1735) that uses the exact same adapter type. Both adapters work and charge in my 1735, both don't work in the Vostro (which I assume eliminates the adapter as a suspect).I have purchased 2 new batteries off eBay, one genuine that is supposedly new although slightly used, and another brand new rip off, all 3 of the batteries will not charge (which I assume eliminates the batteries as suspect)
I bought a Vostro 3700 i7-720q used on ebay. After I bought it I found it would freeze. I eliminated everything I though it could be (i/o conflict, drivers, etc) and nothing worked. This was probably the reason it was sold on ebay. I noticed how hot the machine and fan got. I researched upgradeding the cpu to an i7-940xm and when got the chip planned to put in best thermal transfer to solve the freeze up problem I conculded was due to heat. I thought to be Powerstrate xtreme to be the best thermal transfer to use during the cpu switchout.
I pull the heat sink and its obivous why my machine was hot. The thermal past was a crummy job. I cleaned off heat sink with arctic Ice cleaner, put powerstrate xtreme on cpu and replaced the cpu with a i7-940. Boots up and has been running fine AND it is soooo much cooler.
Getting to the heat sink IS NOT an easy task in the Vostro 3700 - I love my Vostro 3700 BUT it is a very delicate task to remove the keyboard, palm rest and base in order to get to the motherboard and heatsink. I wouldn't do it again.
I'm planning my next notebook purchase and wherefore interested in fan noise levels of those two models. Does it have a high-tone annoying pitch as stated on e.g. ThinkPad 410?
I have to restore my dell vostro 3700 to factory state, but I dont know how. I googled it and just found the instruction like "restart pc, then press F8>repair your computer>choose language>log in as administrator and then choose recovery tool> dell datasafe restore and emergency back-up
It would be ok, but I dont have there the option of "dell datasafe restore and emergency back-up" I have there just startup repair, system restore, system image recovery, windows memory diagnostic, command prompt and that's all... I miss there the 6th option.
After an automatic update of a Dell Vostro 3700 laptop with Windows 7 on it, I got the following problem :
- First, I got the black screen with the information "Applying update operation 3 of 18014 (_0000000000000000_) - Then it shows a quick blue screen and then the computer restarts directly. - I have been able to display the complete blue screen message. Here it is :
STOP : c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The initial session process or system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0x00000000 (0xc0000034 0x001005b0). The system has been shut down
I tried to start the recovery tools of Windows but it keeps on saying that it's not able to recover the system. With this information :
- Start in safe mode : Always the blue screen - Restore and old version : Same recovery error message - Start in command line : always the blue screen.
Been trying to get all my ducks in a row for when my 1510 arrives, DLing drivers and such.
Been reading some old threads/how tos here on doing a fresh install of Windows XP. It was suggested to put the SATA drivers on a bootable flash drive for installation during the Windows install, so you would be in AHCI mode when finished and not have to try to do it later.
Is that the current method of installing the SATA drivers for AHCI?
I bought a used vostro 3700. I need to change the boot sequence, but it will not let me into the setup without an admin password. What that password is. Previous owner is unknown. What can I do?
Dell 14z 5423. I need to boot into the thumb drive. Is it F2, F8 or F12? I'm creating a bootable Linux drive in case of failure and it says the F key is dependent on your system. I want to know before I create.
It also seems that the motherboard won't recognize the battery despite the fact that windows *can* occasionaly recharge it,even weirder sometimes with no prior warnning or indication it seems that it is able to recharge again. My two theories are that the problem is either faulty hardware, or I need to update BIOS. What do you think?
Something recently happened to my laptop, and now whenever I boot up my laptop, I get a message stating that "No drive detected", and I don't know if the hard drive might be damaged or not.
I tried connecting the hard drive directly to a desktop pc since it's a sata hard drive, but my desktop pc just froze on the boot screen whenever this hard drive was connected.
I also was going to try and use a hard drive external case to maybe connect it to the pc this way, but I wasn't sure if it would work
Re HP Pavilion g7 Notebook PC, Windows 8, 64-bit. I want to be able to safely remove a USB thumb-drive without shutting down the computer. There is no icon for "Safely Remove Hardware" as on other computers I have. I have not been able to find the program or its icon using "search" or "find". It is not indexed in the user guide.
I have a Dell Inspiron E1505. I just reinstalled XP earlier today and now everything is like new again. Unfortunately, my files and movies from my external hardrive are taking too long to transfer onto my computer.
I did one movie at a time and it's taking like 35 minutes to transfer, when before it only took 3 minutes to transfer. Anyone know why this is happening
ACER 2423 confirmed dead. The hard drive should have recoverable files and I want to access them. I put the drive into a USB external enclosure and my desktop can see the drive and its partitions. It will not however read any files. Does ACER have a software code or something that prevents this?
Just purchased an Inspiron 15 laptop with Windows 8. I removed the hard disk drive from our old Inspiron 6000, installed it in an enclosure, and hooked it to the new laptop to be able to access the document files. (The hdd from the old computer is a Western Digital 250 GB and was newly installed six months ago).
When I plug in the enclosure, the power light comes on and it shows up on the new laptop as local disk E. When I click on disk E and go to documents, the only documents shown are three that are saved on the new laptop, and none of the hundreds of documents saved on the hdd from the old computer. What I can do?
My sons laptop has died and needs returned for warranty work - likely a problem with the mother board. It was suggested that we backup files on the hard drive before sending. I pulled the hard drive and attached it to another computer via Serial ATA to USB cable. A portion of the hard drive can be accessed through Windows Explorer which shows 25GB of the 750GB hard drive and only shows an applications and a drivers folder. Word documents, data and pictures cannot be found.
I tried to take ownership of the hard drive thinking that this might make the data visible but it did not. I expect there is about 150GB of file storage (excluding programs) that we would like to back-up. Am concerned that the hard drive may have been damaged but the data that is accessible seems to be whole and intact.
Inspiron 15z Ultrabook, Windows 8, DELL System Recovery.
I have an external Seagate Expansion Drive 2TB and had backup files on it. I created a new partition by shrinking the E: volume and made F: to use for the DELL System Recovery.
I selected the F: partition when asked what drive to use. I was 100% certain E: would never chosen during any steps in the process. After it finished I looked in Computer and found both partitions had been formatted and a DBR_Boot placed in both. Yet E: (where personal files were stored) is basically empty other than what appears to be a boot up capability and F: has the recovery files.
Why has this happened? I need those files. Is there a way to reverse the process or will file recovery software be needed in an attempt to regain those files?
I can't believe this hasn't happened to other people, must be a common occurrence. What I could do to recover lost files.
I have bought HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 CTO Entertainment Notebook PC on last year August. Yesterday while I was working on my Laptop It was restarted and Bios (setup) screen was shown. After this when I try to boot my laptop it shows blank (black) screen forever (no errors shown).
When I diagnose my laptop, I got Hard Drive Short DST Failure . I have called HP service center and they were telling to replace the hard drive.
But I have some many important files and documents in my laptop. is it possible to recover my files using some method?
Product description: HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 CTO Entertainment Notebook PC Product number: C0L24AAR
I've been following instruction on this link to create bootable windows installation usb thumb drives [URL] .... And it's been working fine with usb 2.0 thumb drives on the X1C (old ver). However, for some reason it won't work with usb 3.0 thumb drives.
I've tried several, but everytime I select the thumb drive on boot selection, the screen blinks and goes back to boot selection. I'm assuming it's not reading my boot information. It works fine on usb 2.0 thumb drives.
I was wondering if its possible to change the current DVD drive in my Vostro 1500 to a Bluray drive.
I know that there are external Bluray drives around but they seem to need an external power source. Has anyone put a Bluray drive in their Vostro or know if it is even possible?
