Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop appears to be locked

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Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop with latest BIOS was working fine for a long time. All of a sudden it won’t boot the OS. When started, it runs the POST and then displays a cursor in the upper left corner of the screen. Nothing we have tried will cause Windows XP SP3 to boot.

The machine passes ALL diagnostic tests including the hard drive (which is relatively new) so there is NOT a hardware problem.

The machine does NOT have hardware passwords enabled.

The machine acts as if it thinks it is stolen and does have a hardware password although it does NOT ask for one.

We thought the machine “might” be stuck in suspend/stand-by or hibernate mode but since the OS doesn’t boot, that seems unlikely.

If anyone has run into this and found a solution, please let me know.

Thanks .. Don

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So have you tried all of this http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/266435/EN

If you can boot up into Safe Mode by either of the methods described in the article, then go to the Dell support site and download the Chipset/Video drivers.

If that still doesn’t do it and you have a XP install disk then follow these steps to fix the Master Boot Record (MBR) http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/repairmbr.htm

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Yes, we have tried all of the above. We are knowledgeable computer people.
As stated earlier, when attempting a normal boot, POST runs and then everything stops with a cursor in the upper left corner. It doesn’t appear to ever attempt to access the hard drive (which tests as good).
When attempting to boot from a Windows XP installation CD, after pressing a key to boot to the CD, a message about checking system configuration appears, then everything stops with a blank screen. Windows setup is never loaded.
All of this leads me to believe that the machine thinks it has been stolen and won’t boot the OS since that gives the user a number of options not desirable to give to a thief.
The hardware is NOT password protected. I did try instituting a password and on starting the machine would be asked for that password, which after entering result in the same blank screen with cursor in upper left.

The hardware and memory are relatively new, have worked perfectly for several years, and pass all diagnostic tests.

The only think I can think of that caused this might be an accidentally pressing some weird key combination to put the machine into some kind of protected mode????

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Anything amiss in BIOS. I assume you’ve gotten in there and looked around.

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Yes, we have the latest BIOS and have checked all settings, etc.

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The only think I can think of that caused this might be an accidentally pressing some weird key combination to put the machine into some kind of protected mode????

I doubt it. It looks to me like you’re in for a repair install.
You should also consider making an image of the drive if successful.

Have you looked into the possibility of an NTLDR issue?
NTLDR is Missing

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These require booting from a CD and as I mentioned that doesn’t work. The CD is read and a screen is displayed and when it tries to boot everything stops.

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Can you actually get into Safe Mode to select with Command Prompt and run a chkdsk /f or just chkdsk in read-only mode ?

Another option is to create a Kaspersky Rescue Disk and boot up with that http://support.kaspersky.co.uk/viruses/rescuedisk/

You will need to wire up for it to use the Update Center and then run the Scan C:

This scan can take a number of hours to complete.

There’s also the Hiron’s Boot Disk you can create to use the tools on that.

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

This is what it contains http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

And one for ImgBurn to burn the ISO for either http://filehippo.com/download_imgburn

Edit
Couldn’t find this link before – if you need it for Kaspersky http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/36403/how-to-use-the-kaspersky-rescue-disk-to-clean-your-infected-pc/

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As mentioned earlier, booting from CD doesn’t work. The CD is read and a screen is displayed then everything stops.

I have imaging software and an image but can’t do anything since the bootable recovery CD stops after displaying the opening screen.

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…I have imaging software and an image but can’t do anything since the bootable recovery CD stops after displaying the opening screen…

Your CD/DVD drive could be faulty. You could try booting from a USB CD/DVD drive.

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The Kaspersky and Hiren’s Boot disks boot up and work outside of Windows so it won’t be trying to load Windows for it to stop.

I would try the Kaspersky Rescue Disk – it pulled me out of the mire when I only had a black screen with just a big white cursor arrow to look at and I couldn’t even get it to boot from a Win 7 install disk.

The link I’ve posted under my Edit in my last post is a How to use guide.

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The Kaspersky and Hiren’s Boot disks boot up and work outside of Windows so it won’t be trying to load Windows for it to stop.

I would try the Kaspersky Rescue Disk – it pulled me out of the mire when I only had a black screen with just a big white cursor arrow to look at and I couldn’t even get it to boot from a Win 7 install disk.

The link I’ve posted under my Edit in my last post is a How to use guide.

I tried the Kaspersky Rescue Disk and it DID boot. It did a virus check (I did the entire computer) and found nothing.

The computer still will not boot .. stops after the POST completes, same as before. I assume you had a virus which the Kaspersky Rescue Disk eliminated to solve your problem. Our problem is NOT a virus (and we had Anti-virus protection in place).

I suspect something has caused the computer hardware to think in has been stolen and has therefore locked it up.

This computer has been donated through several owners to the local Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team so we can’t really “prove” ownership so going to Dell is not likely to get results.

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My problem wasn’t a virus but the result of someone inserting files which screwed up my Startup and Shutdown and when I tried using the restore points – it hung and after about an hour and three quarters, I felt I had no other option but to hit the power button which left the laptop in limbo.

When the scan eventually completed, I hit Shutdown and it started a chkdsk /f as it not only scans for viruses, it also rescues.

How did you do “ALL diagnostic tests” and what were they ?

Have you tried removing one RAM stick (I assume it will have more than one) – swapping slots and then doing the same with the other stick to see if it will boot each time ?

Try this on just AC with the battery removed.

Looking at https://atservice.intel.com/help.action and if it has this installed, then it would have had to have been done remotely and given the number of years you’ve had it in use, I think it’s unlikely that a previous owner would have decided to activate it.

Would it be possible to back track from the local Sheriff’s office the last donor and take it from there to see if any of the previous owners had installed this lockdown facility of if any past members of your team could have installed it as a safety measure ?

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My problem wasn’t a virus but the result of someone inserting files which screwed up my Startup and Shutdown and when I tried using the restore points – it hung and after about an hour and three quarters, I felt I had no other option but to hit the power button which left the laptop in limbo.

When the scan eventually completed, I hit Shutdown and it started a chkdsk /f as it not only scans for viruses, it also rescues.

chkdsk didn’t happen when I shut down. I haven’t been able to figure out any way to cause the Kasperski program to run chkdsk.

How did you do “ALL diagnostic tests” and what were they ?

The computer has a built in high level Diagnostic program package that does a thorough testing of all components, memory, hard drive, etc. All tests passed so there is not a hardware problem.

Have you tried removing one RAM stick (I assume it will have more than one) – swapping slots and then doing the same with the other stick to see if it will boot each time ?

Try this on just AC with the battery removed.

Looking at https://atservice.intel.com/help.action and if it has this installed, then it would have had to have been done remotely and given the number of years you’ve had it in use, I think it’s unlikely that a previous owner would have decided to activate it.

I looked at this and if it had been installed it would have kicked in years ago so I’m sure this has not been installed.

Would it be possible to back track from the local Sheriff’s office the last donor and take it from there to see if any of the previous owners had installed this lockdown facility of if any past members of your team could have installed it as a safety measure ?

I am the immediate previous owner, my grandson before that, his employer before that. I replaced the ram and the hard drive and it has run flawlessly for several years.

This problem occurred right after installing some new software – Adobe Acrobat – so the possibility of corrupted Windows files would be a reasonable possibility SO running chkdsk /r would make sense.

I could not figure out any way to run chkdsk under the Kasperski Rescue Disk. The machine will boot that CD ONLY because it is Linux based. I found a package designed to run chkdsk from a bootable CD, HOWEVER, it attempts to boot to a version of Windows which doesn’t work.

So at this point it looks like the only way I can access the hard drive is by booting a CD based on Linux.

Thanks for sticking with me .. you help much appreciated.

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When the scan eventually completed, I hit Shutdown and it started a chkdsk /f as it not only scans for viruses, it also rescues.

Huh? Chkdsk /f (or a more thorough /r) only scans and fixes disk errors. It has no virus scanning capability.

Jerry

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Huh? Chkdsk /f (or a more thorough /r) only scans and fixes disk errors. It has no virus scanning capability.

Jerry

This is what the Kaspersky Rescue Disk does http://support.kaspersky.co.uk/4131 but somehow after I hit the Shutdown button, it started a chkdsk and going by the length of time that took, I assumed it was just a chkdsk /f – but you could be right in that it had the system run a chkdsk /r, but for either, it must have found corrupt system files as well as scanning for infections – it took over 9 hours for the scan to complete before it initiated the chkdsk on clicking on Shutdown.

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I suspect something has caused the computer hardware to think in has been stolen and has therefore locked it up.

Surely you’d know if you had some form of 3rd party “protection” software installed on the machine?

This computer has been donated through several owners to the local Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team so we can’t
really “prove” ownership so going to Dell is not likely to get results.

I hope you have clean installed after getting this machine donated to you?
Otherwise you really don’t know what your getting.

I tried the Kaspersky Rescue Disk and it DID boot. It did a virus check (I did the entire computer) and found nothing.

So you are able to boot to CD/DVD?

Take the drive out of the laptop and attach it as a secondary drive to another computer, preferably a desktop,
where you can scan it for AV/AM and then pull the data off of it.
You may need to purchase a SATA to USB connector or cradle.

After the above the drive can be formatted and returned to the laptop for clean installation.

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I can NOT boot to any Windows based CD. I can ONLY boot to a Linux based CD such as the Kasperski Rescue Disk

The Kasperski CD does a virus scan so that is not a problem.

The computer was being prepped for use in one of our Search & Rescue vehicles so there is no data that needs to be recovered. At this point all we are trying to arrive at is a functional computer with appropriate software installed.

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When a computer has more than one RAM module, running a memory test with all installed can produce a false result which is why any memory test should be done on just one stick installed at a time, but a quick test is to try each stick on its own to see if the computer will boot.

If Adobe is the cause of the corruption then a Paragon Rescue Disk could help as it has a Boot Corrector among its tools.

While this is a free program, it does require a product key to activate which is e-mailed to you.

Clicking on the Download & User Manual link on the left takes you to a page with the options of the program and separate manual (PDF) download buttons.

This program has its own burner program so you just need a disk.

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I tried the Paragon Recovery Disk without success but may not have used it correctly. I didn’t spend much time with it since I had already decided to do an image restore.

See my reply to dg1261 for details.

Thanks .. Don

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Glad that you have finally sorted the problem, but it would have been nice if one of the interim suggestions had worked instead of having to resort to the “final solution”.

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Don,

I have seen that symptom on occasion. In the cases I examined the cause was corrupt or missing boot sector code–the “instructions” the CPU is trying to follow in the MBR or PBR (partition boot record). There could be other causes, of course, but those would be my prime suspects and I’m not yet sure your tests have adequately ruled out those possibilities.

Here’s a brief overview of the standard boot process:

[*]When the POST routine completes, it reads the first sector from the hard disk and copies it into RAM. This contains MBR boot code and the partition table.

[*]The BIOS code’s final act is to reset the CPU’s instruction pointer to the RAM location where it copied the drive data. This results in the CPU continuing from there, executing whatever instruction code has been loaded from the MBR.

[*]The MBR instructions (now in RAM) tell the CPU to read the partition table (now also in RAM) and determine the starting location of the partition to be booted.

[*]The instructions next read the first sector (the PBR) of that partition, and likewise copies it into RAM.

[*]The instruction pointer is again reset, this time to the location in RAM where the PBR was copied.

[*]The CPU continues from there. The ensuing instructions, specific to the OS installed, should tell it where to find the rest of the boot code (ntldr, etc) and bootstrap up the rest of the operating system.

By the time it gets this far, the OS is often capable enough of displaying some kind of message on the screen if something goes wrong, but that’s not the case in the earlier steps, where a failure leads to nothing but a blinking cursor. So IMHO, all the stuff about scandisk and malware scans is getting ahead of yourself. While those might be a problem, I don’t think you’re even getting that far. I think you’ve got a problem before the OS is even starting to load.

In steps 1 & 4 there is no way of telling whether the sector being read actually contains executable instruction code (it only does a simple check for a “AA55” boot indicator). Thus, when the instruction pointer is reset (steps 2 & 5) the CPU can be left trying to execute a bunch or zeroes or other invalid x86 instructions, resulting in a CPU hang.

If the MBR code has been zeroed/corrupted, or the PBR code has been zeroed/corrupted, or if the partition table is bad the system can hang with a blinking cursor. (After all, the CPU has no way of knowing something just went wrong.) I’ve seen these sectors zeroed by boot sector viruses, as well as ham-fisted techs who were trying to repair something but didn’t know what they were doing.

Sudo has given you some links to address some of these possibilities. His link in #2 would fix bad/missing MBR code. I think his link in #17 would be able to fix bad PBR code. (I’ve similarly used a Macrium Reflect Rescue CD to fix Win7/8 PBRs, so I think it would work on XP as well.)

Clint’s reply #14 would serve to check the partition table. If you can look at the drive from another system and see all the files, then its partition table is likely okay (although I think you’d need a EIDE-to-USB as I don’t believe the 5100 used a SATA drive).

All that aside, my recommendation would be to nuke the drive and start over with a clean install. You said there was nothing to recover and you evidently have a reinstallation CD to use, so if you’re preparing this for somebody else’s use it’s probably best to start from a known clean state anyway.

I’m guessing the windows-based CDs you’ve tried are getting hung up because they’re being told (by the drive) there’s a Windows OS but they can’t quite figure it out. The XP reinstallation CD should boot properly if it doesn’t think there’s any pre-existing OS, so zero out the MBR and partition table and then it should allow you to start over as if it were a new, blank hard drive. Try using a linux-based partition manager to delete all existing partitions, and then retry booting from the XP reinstallation CD.

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Don,

I have seen that symptom on occasion. In the cases I examined the cause was corrupt or missing boot sector code–the “instructions” the CPU is trying to follow in the MBR or PBR (partition boot record). There could be other causes, of course, but those would be my prime suspects and I’m not yet sure your tests have adequately ruled out those possibilities.

Here’s a brief overview of the standard boot process:

[*]When the POST routine completes, it reads the first sector from the hard disk and copies it into RAM. This contains MBR boot code and the partition table.

[*]The BIOS code’s final act is to reset the CPU’s instruction pointer to the RAM location where it copied the drive data. This results in the CPU continuing from there, executing whatever instruction code has been loaded from the MBR.

[*]The MBR instructions (now in RAM) tell the CPU to read the partition table (now also in RAM) and determine the starting location of the partition to be booted.

[*]The instructions next read the first sector (the PBR) of that partition, and likewise copies it into RAM.

[*]The instruction pointer is again reset, this time to the location in RAM where the PBR was copied.

[*]The CPU continues from there. The ensuing instructions, specific to the OS installed, should tell it where to find the rest of the boot code (ntldr, etc) and bootstrap up the rest of the operating system.

By the time it gets this far, the OS is often capable enough of displaying some kind of message on the screen if something goes wrong, but that’s not the case in the earlier steps, where a failure leads to nothing but a blinking cursor. So IMHO, all the stuff about scandisk and malware scans is getting ahead of yourself. While those might be a problem, I don’t think you’re even getting that far. I think you’ve got a problem before the OS is even starting to load.

In steps 1 & 4 there is no way of telling whether the sector being read actually contains executable instruction code (it only does a simple check for a “AA55” boot indicator). Thus, when the instruction pointer is reset (steps 2 & 5) the CPU can be left trying to execute a bunch or zeroes or other invalid x86 instructions, resulting in a CPU hang.

If the MBR code has been zeroed/corrupted, or the PBR code has been zeroed/corrupted, or if the partition table is bad the system can hang with a blinking cursor. (After all, the CPU has no way of knowing something just went wrong.) I’ve seen these sectors zeroed by boot sector viruses, as well as ham-fisted techs who were trying to repair something but didn’t know what they were doing.

Sudo has given you some links to address some of these possibilities. His link in #2 would fix bad/missing MBR code. I think his link in #17 would be able to fix bad PBR code. (I’ve similarly used a Macrium Reflect Rescue CD to fix Win7/8 PBRs, so I think it would work on XP as well.)

Clint’s reply #14 would serve to check the partition table. If you can look at the drive from another system and see all the files, then its partition table is likely okay (although I think you’d need a EIDE-to-USB as I don’t believe the 5100 used a SATA drive).

All that aside, my recommendation would be to nuke the drive and start over with a clean install. You said there was nothing to recover and you evidently have a reinstallation CD to use, so if you’re preparing this for somebody else’s use it’s probably best to start from a known clean state anyway.

I’m guessing the windows-based CDs you’ve tried are getting hung up because they’re being told (by the drive) there’s a Windows OS but they can’t quite figure it out. The XP reinstallation CD should boot properly if it doesn’t think there’s any pre-existing OS, so zero out the MBR and partition table and then it should allow you to start over as if it were a new, blank hard drive. Try using a linux-based partition manager to delete all existing partitions, and then retry booting from the XP reinstallation CD.

Thanks for this thorough analysis. I am somewhat familiar with the boot process but your description is helpful.

I discovered that I had the original hard drive saved so I took out the newer drive and installed the older drive and it booted fine. This pretty much confirmed that the boot process was dealing with corrupted code on the newer drive.

The older (smaller) drive was about 2.5 years out of date, etc. so I proceeded to bring it up to date, saving backup images as I went.

I have an appropriate (yes the 5100 is not SATA) external drive enclosure so put the newer (larger) drive in it. I could read it with no problems, again indicating that the likely problem was the boot process code. I did a chkdsk /r on it just in case the file structure was messed up which it apparently wasn’t.

Final solution as you recommended was to format the new drive and then restore the updated backup image from the old drive on to the new drive. This went without problems and the new drive now boots as it should.

How the MBR and/or the PBR got corrupted is the next question. One wouldn’t expect that installing Acrobat (done by another individual) would cause that. I have NOT installed Acrobat at this point – will make a fresh backup image first

I DID try all of Sudo’s suggested recovery disks without success. I may not have used the Paragon disk correctly – not being sure of some things – but I didn’t spend much time with it since I had already concluded that I would do a restore from an available image. In addition to the updated images made from the older drive, I had an image from the newer drive but it was also a bit out of date.

Thank’s to everyone for the offered help.

Don

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Have you taken the back off, and checked the integrity of all the cables ?

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In cases like this, where standard troubleshooting techniques fail, I usually revert to non-standard troubleshooting.

While I believe this may be an MBR issue, I would also try to flash the BIOS.

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I would buy a copy of win 7, pull the drive, connect it to a desktop, wipe it, and put it back and install Win 7

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This machine is marginal for Windows 7 with some possible driver problems. The machine will be used during search and rescue operations but will almost never be connected to the Internet so XP is fine.

My personal machines are all Windows 7 as are some of the SAR teams other machines.

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