Laptop Repair Recommendation?

Hi Collective Brain.

I have a fairly decent Dell laptop that I got a couple of years ago when I was working not-from-home for a while. I hadn't even fired it up for probably 9 months but when I tried last week it ain't having it.

Runs hardware scan on start up, says it's fine, goes to dell icon with spinning dots then does nothing. Then goes back to hardware scan...

It was running fine and it's just been sat on a shelf so I'm hoping it's not that serious but I'd like to sort it out. Random googling of a repair shop seems like a terrible idea so does anyone have a recommendation? I'd rather just drop it off somewhere but could post if I need to. Or I could send it back to dell, but again, I'm not sure that's a great idea.

Many thanks,

B.

should say, I'm in S london.

Try removing the hard drive and see if it says no hard drive

Assuming it's running Window 10, does the ring of balls just stop spinning after a while then just sit there?

If so it might be a botched update or patch causing startup to stall or hang.

Which can be fixed by creating a Windows 10 repair USB and booting from that.

Sorry, left this tab open on the 'work' computer so just checked back in. The ring just spins until the screen goes blank. It then reappears, starts spinning and does the same cycle. I left it on last night soi it cycles through about every 30 seconds.

I'll have a google about creating the repair usb and see if I can give it a go.

thanks for the advice.

Actually, can't even get it to boot into bios or anything else so don't think I'll be able to boot from a drive.

Might give the dell help line a try, 48 quid but no fee if they can't resolve it. Remote support though... Would still rather take it somewhere if there was a reliable option?

When you say the ring just spins. The Windows branded one?

If so, you're already past the BIOS so I'd guess you could get into it if you knew the shortcut. Have you tried spamming the usual keys as it's booting. F12, F10, Del, Esc, F1 etc.

May just be you've got a splash screen that's hiding the bit that would normally say 'Press F12 to enter BIOS/Setup'

And is there anything you need to keep on the laptop? If there's not then think about a clean install of Windows 10 rather than repairing the existing slightly broken install.

Assuming you have a Windows 10 licence key, a working laptop and a usb key, this can be tried for free:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12415/windows-10-recovery-options#section4

I have done this a couple of times on a borked pc and it's worked well. Just be ready to hammer the correct key to enter bios settings if need to change boot load order.

I had a similar issue. In the end I did a fresh install which struggled due to a corrupted drive.

Just to ask the obvious, is there anything on there you need?

If so, and it's not encrypted, it would be worth making a live version of Ubuntu and seeing if that runs. TBH it's probably worth doing anyway to help with diagnosis/narrow down the issues.

I've used Hennessy Laptop & PC repair in Deptford before - he bought a laptop back from the dead for me that HP had already had a go at & said was a gonner.

Thanks for the advice, i jumped into the you-tube hole and made a usb back up, reset the bios settings so it should have read it and though I could get bios options (F2) and run a diagnostics test on all the hardwear (F8 and F12) I still couldn't get it to show the usb as an option. I read that as it only has USB C it can sometimes be an issue. My mate gave me the number of some guy / place in croydon so I've dropped him a mail. Might try the guy in Detford as well as I can cycle down there easy enough. At the edges of my computer skills now though. Thanks again for the advice folks.

Just in case anyone trawls this up. I took it to Hennesey in Deptford in the end.

Other folks I called wanted 40 quid collection and 40 delivery (wouldn't let me drop it off even though they were 15 mins away) then 150 for the first hour diagnosis. Then whatever else on top.

Hennessey let me drop it of and it was 60 for diagnosis. Turned out the BIOS was totally screwed and he couldn't even see the drives (which explains why I couldn't see the USB to try and boot it from that). He fixed up all the BIOS and reinstalled windows minus all the dell bloatwear and it was another 180 quid. I've no idea if that's reasonable but it's def cheaper than the other place would have been and he was a really nice bloke. So, even though i have no idea if he screwed me i was a good experience... I'd recommend him if someone is looking for a fix. Much cheaper than a new laptop but a lot more than i was hoping to spend, I guess.

Probably fair.

I think I'd flinch a bit at the cost, but only because it's fairly trivial stuff.
But then it's only trivial if you know how to do it.

Glad Hennesey worked out for you!
I also had no idea if his prices were good or not but he gets the job done so that's good enough for me.