[xEclipsex]

Alright.
So, I'm having alot of problems with windows vista. I run off of a Dell Inspiron 1501 labtop, and it worked fine until a while back. It wouldn't install updates correctly, and it would freeze often.

Now;
It won't install updates, Nothing that has windows in the name responds, (Windows Media Player, Windows Live One Care, etc.) And all my downloads won't work. I went to go download itunes today, and it said it was going to take 23 days.

Can anyone help me?

I use Avira anti-virus and reports come clean.

[TerryNet]

Time to reinstall Windows using your Recovery Partition, Recovery disks or Vista installation DVD. Not a trivial task, but neither is finding and fixing "alot of problems."

[xEclipsex]

Well, My computer didn't come with a system disc, or anything like that. I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 running regular Vista, and it's a 64 bit, if that helps.

[joeten]

hi you might try ctrl + F11 to try to access your recovery partition

[xEclipsex]

Well, I tried that, but nothing happened. ?
My computer just made a beep noise.

[TerryNet]

Here is at least one way to use the Recovery Partition.

[xEclipsex]

Alright, i'll try it as soon as my computer is done scanning.
I scanned it using the boot-up f12 option. As soon as it's done, i'll try that.
Do you know if that gets rid of possible viruses, or anything?

[xEclipsex]

I didn't really have a choice, it was a Christmas present, and I knew nothing of computers at the time.
I'm about to try to reformat the hard drive, though.

[xEclipsex]

Well, I can't access Backup And Restore Center, due to Control panel loading, then not responding. I tried going straight to the Backup And Restore Center, but it doesn't even load. I'm so confused. Anything else I can do?

[TerryNet]

I think you'll have to contact Dell. And, for what it's worth, I think it should be covered under warranty.

With many manufacturers you can get to the Recovery partition with a key or key combination right after turning on the machine, as joeten indicated, and there is a procedure for creating one set of Recovery DVDs or CDs. When I searched around the Dell site I could not find these options; unless I missed something you are stuck if you can't get Windows to work well enough to get into the Recovery procedure.

[ttifrum]

have you tried pressing F8 at boot up to get the boot menu up? If you do you'll probably find an option Repair My Computer listed just above Safe Mode. If you select this you'll eventually get a menu that will allow you to do various operations one of which will be restore to original factory condition.

[joeten]

hi did you try step 3 in the link TerryNet provided in post 6 http://support.dell.com/support/topi...t?docid=336966

[xEclipsex]

Well everyone, I was able to fix it.
By formatting the hard drive, and it fixed everything.
Special thanks to TerryNet for the help.
^_^

[TerryNet]

Glad it finally worked out. Give a big share of thanks to ttifrum and joeten too!

You can mark this Solved using the button at the upper left of the page.