dell inspiron 3520 rant/help windows 8

[lan101]

I picked up a dell inspiron 3520 from a customer earlier today with a 0xc000021a boot error. I get 9 startup options similar to the past with vista/7 with the different safe modes, disable drive reinforcement etc. None of the options worked, just right back to the same error. For the life of me, I cannot get to the advanced options list. I've tried every possible combination to get there with no avail. I wanted to attempt system restore or at least get to the refresh and recovery options. So that's one problem.

I have an official dell recovery disc for windows 8. It's just the OS dvd not the set custom for this computer. Of course the customer didn't make any recovery discs. It will not boot using this disc for anything. I've tried turning on legacy boot and turning secure boot off and it just errors out to a black screen with "Reboot and select proper boot device" etc.

It does pass all the diagnostics using the built in dell diagnostic tests.

I'm thinking the only choice we have left is to order official recovery discs from dell unless anyone has suggestions? I miss the nice days of putting in the cd/dvd and going right to a repair command prompt or a reformat.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Does this thread help?

http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60636

 

[lan101]

Thank you. I will give that a try.

 

[lan101]

I'm downloading that now, but I got out my usb dvd drive and plugged that in and the dvd media I had before is working on it...so I believe this dvd drive is faulty as well. I'll post back the results.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Nice. My local microcenter usually has external DVD drives for about 15 dollars. I need to pick one up myself.

 

[lan101]

Wow I feel I got ripped off by newegg lol. I bought this one a few years ago for like $45 I believe. Using the external got me what I needed. Thank you for the site though. That should come in handy for sure.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Yeah i found it in here from the other guy that posted it.