Laptop Opening To A Diagnostic Page

Hi Guys and Girls,
It's yet again Wheelo problem computer time, lets hope this one can be solved as easily as other previous problems.
When I power up the Laptop, the dell screen flashes up, then this one,



which then quickly brings me to this one



When you scroll down to exit, it just does the same thing. now, even if I run these , then exit,it still boots up the same way.

What I was doing was:-
My mothers laptop(the exact same as mine) was all over the place, so I was backing up all photos,documents,etc., then using the system factory reset built in to the laptop. I did this, then used acronis to get an image of a clean install,just in case.
I then tried to put this image on my own laptop as I have an image of my own to go back to if needed. To do this I went into the BIOS and put boot from CD/DVD drive first. now all I can think of is that I hit something when I was in here, but I have looked around BIOS settings, and can't find what it is.
any ideas??? won;t be back in till tomorrow, so no rush
Cheers
Wheelo

Hi Wheelo. what I would do is go to the BIOS again and reset it back to default settings then obviously go to the BOOt order page and set it to CD/DVD to boot first and see it if that corrects it.
it looks like its set in a "check at startup" loop

Hey Wheelo.

I'm not sure if you have noticed this about Acronis, but have you seen the MBR backup/restore checkbox?

It may just be alright to restore your own Acronis True Home Image backup from your own laptop onto your mothers laptop since its the same model. Since you will be restoring to a different hard drive, you will also need to restore the MBR. Did you back this up in your initial backup with Acronis?

Thanks both to Dan and Supaduper, I will try the BIOS route first as I am convinced that is where the problem is. I dont think I have ever seen a restore to defaults, but I am sure I will find it.
Dan, I did notice that check box and didn't know what it was about,but as you say, they are both the exact same laptop,so it shouldn't matter, in fact, acronis said restore completed successfully, or whatever it's specific message is.
will get back later and let you know if this worked or if I need more help

Wheelo

you should be able to just pull the bios battery for a minute and it will automatically reset bios defaults.

Okay, so I reset the bios to factory settings, no change.
I then removed the BIOS battery,I had to reset time,but no difference to the boot sequence.
I re-recovered the HDD, I then got a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner.
And that, my friendsis where I currently am, any more ideas???

Hi bud I think it is to do with your Acronis image bud,did you save the whole drive when you did the image I.E the 100mb partition that W7 has combined with it so you would tick the C & D options when recovering, and did you `Validate ` the image to make sure it was not corrpt?

That my friend is the built in diagnostics on your dell, not sure why its was starting into that each time at start up, normally you hold down the Fn key as you power on or use the included drivers disc on boot, is the Fn key stuck maybe?
Black screen at start up you will need the installation dvd and possibly the drivers cd if you have RAID to either recover or restore

Hey Axxxo,
I have the XP disc and the drivers disc, what should I be doing?
As simply put as you can, I have run the windows disk, it says if you want to install a third party RAID driver, press f6, I do this, it tells me to put the disc in drive A: , I do so then press enter to continue, but the program doesn't seem to recognise the disk, any help gratefully accepted.
Wheelo

Superduper,
it is XP thatI amrunning, and yes I copied the whole C: drive and I never saw an option to "validate " the image
Wheelo

I still think it is a Bad image wheelo,I have been using Acronis for a few years now and am on version 2010,some of the earlier versions were a little buggy and could give bad images now and then so if you can get the latest one.
Validating your images is a good habit because obviously it will tell you if it is good. to use validate you normally highlight the image then right click your mouse and the option should be there for you.
Also why dont you upgrade to w7 you wont regret it !.

just seen your last post bud, you need to go back and change your `Boot Sequence` because its booting to the A: floppy) drive first, change it so that CD/DVD is first boot device.
Also only press f6 if you have raid or a sata Hard drive
regards Supa