Hi thanks for replying! I've not contacted Dell yet, but I will if I can't resolve it. I've only used this computer on occasion until recently when my 6 yr old laptop started to show its age.
Here's what I've tried:
--chkdsk
--start up repair 8 times, can't repair
--tried booting from a recovery CD made from an Acer laptop (but it wouldn't allow me to choose an option)
--the testing I did found some hard drive errors and it said replace disk (but normally chkdsk fixes them)
--I've done a sfc /scannow registry integrity thingy seen on this site... but it said it couldn't perform it (windows recovery something or other)
--I was able to run my CCleaner to clean up the registry, but that didn't work
--I tried running this guy's W7F diagnostic tool (found on the BSOD thread), but it said the sub-image wasn't there to run it (it did work on my laptop) (ran all apps as admin)
--tried to restore to a recovery point but it disallows it as I hadn't set up something previously (my external hard drive hadn't been working properly so i recently removed it, but hadn't had that same problem since)
--when i go to the option of installing the drivers, i have no clue which file to use (but thankfully, i can see that they're there).
there was another person who had a thread that mirrored my issues, but no one got her past the diagnostics. I think I've done everything they suggested and more.
unfortunately, i can't find my win7 64 bit upgrade CD i used for my laptop and the laptop won't let me create a recovery CD. I do have the 32 bit upgrade disc--would that help?
I wish MS would give us the freaking OS discs so we could use the repair option like in the good ol' days of Windows crashes.
any help is greatly appreciated!