A client has a new Dell laptop - about a month old - that stopped booting up would show only a blinking cursor. OS is Windows 7 Home Premium. Dell diagnostics show no hardware failure, and we have also run PC Check on the hard drive, with no failures. Addressing the symptoms we booted to the Windows 7 disc and used the command line to fix the boot sector and mbr and were able to boot back into windows. Malwarebytes and AVG both find no infections. We returned the computer to the client and after a couple of days the issue resurfaced. Once again we can fix and get back into Windows but have been unable to identify a root cause. Any suggestions as to what the source of this issue could be are welcome. Thanks, Matt

Died you check the machine for any old programs that much with the disk? Vote if answered or helpful, I am running for Office (joke)! IT/Developer, Windows/Linux/Mainframe Need a some parts finish the new server, see the site for remaining items needed

Computer is only a month old, almost nothing is installed beyond what Dell preinstalled on the machine.

Contact Dell that can help fix the problem. Vote if answered or helpful, I am running for Office (joke)! IT/Developer, Windows/Linux/Mainframe Need a some parts finish the new server, see the site for remaining items needed

Hi, I would appriciate your help in clarifying the following questions: 1.What do you mean by saying after a couple of days the issue resurfaces? Does that mean your client can use the laptop for a while? 2.What did he\she do to the laptop? 3.Have you troubleshoot the issue by using battery only or Power supply only? As this laptop is manufactured by Dell and all the software and driver are preinstalled, it is recomended to contact Dell for direct assistance. Regards,Magon Liu - MSFT

By saying we should contact Dell, do you mean that you think this issue is a hardware issue?

Dell is responsible for the machine generally. Vote if answered or helpful, I am running for Office (joke)! IT/Developer, Windows/Linux/Mainframe Need a some parts finish the new server, see the site for remaining items needed

Unfortunately this was a strange issue that showed no hardware failure and Dell's inept support was unable to offer any actual support. We did however discover that there is apparently an issue with their Data Safe software on Windows 7, and after removing that have had no reoccurance of the issue.