My Windows 8 PC will not boot up at all..... stuck on BIOS

[True Colors]

This is frustrating. Extremely frustrating.

I have a pretty new computer. Just a few months old. It is supposed to be a good one.

Dell XPS 8500
Quad core i7 processor
lots of memory and extras

This computer also has the 64 bit edition of Windows 8 installed on it. Windows 8 is driving me up the wall!!! I have had numerous problems with it since day 1.

As recently as a few days ago, my system was running reasonably okay. Then I downloaded a driver for my network card from the dell.com website. From that point on, I cannot get my computer to boot up properly. I have turned my computer off and on multiple times in hopes that it would correct whatever is wrong.

When I first turn my PC on, it will stay stuck at the Dell logo window for a while.

Sometimes it will make it past that and it will give me an error message that says:

"error sending end of post message to ME, system HALT!"

Also, I sometimes get a message which says:

"the last USB device you connected to the computer malfunctioned, and Windows did not recognize it.

Try reconnecting the device. If windows still does not recognize it, your device may not be working properly."

This is insanity. I have NOT connected any new USB devices to my computer.

I do not know what to do. I figured that the easiest thing might be to try simply reinstalling Windows 8 from scratch. So I inserted my Windows 8 reinstall disk that Dell sent me when I bought this thing. However, my computer will not boot from this disk. So I guess I am stuck.

Please help.

TC

[usually_quiet]

Can you boot into "Safe Mode"? It may be possible to do something there to replace the problem driver.

Dell and other OEM builders usually also set up a recovery partition on the hard drive for you to do a factory restore. Look at the manual to find out how to use it. Otherwise, to boot from the install disk, the optical drive must precede the hard drives and USB drives in the boot order. Go into the boot order configuration screen and make sure this is the case.

[classfour]

If you have not booted into Windows, use last known good configuration.

Otherwise, you need to boot into safe mode (F8, F8, F8 while booting) and do a system restore to a point before the driver was installed.

[deadrats]

guys, he can't past the bios splash screen, safe mode is out of the question. i don't remember which key it is on dell's but as soon as you hit the power button try hitting f2, f8, f12 or del (try them all) as fast as you can to get into the bios (actually i think you won't have a bios, you'll have that new software that replaced, can't remember it's name).

once in there try to find an option for setting the system default settings, save and reboot. if this doesn't do a anything, go back into the bios and change the boot order to boot from the optical drive, save, reboot, pop in the win 8 cd and follow the prompts.

[Cornucopia]

I'm not a major fan of Win8, but regardless, this shouldn't be happening with a new PC. It's still under warranty, so just take it back and get a replacement! Only problem might be remembering to get your own data off the HDD first.

Scott

[usually_quiet]

guys, he can't past the bios splash screen, safe mode is out of the question. i don't remember which key it is on dell's but as soon as you hit the power button try hitting f2, f8, f12 or del (try them all) as fast as you can to get into the bios (actually i think you won't have a bios, you'll have that new software that replaced, can't remember it's name).

once in there try to find an option for setting the system default settings, save and reboot. if this doesn't do a anything, go back into the bios and change the boot order to boot from the optical drive, save, reboot, pop in the win 8 cd and follow the prompts.

I didn't catch that. I'm not sure if it is true with all new Windows 8 systems with a UEFI BIOS, but pressing F11 after rebooting puts the HP I'm typing this on into a screen where it is possible to access various trouble shooting options, recovery options, as well as the BIOS settings.

[Budman1]

First, I would remove the network card, if it is a card and all possible USB devices, since they can keep your computer from booting and you have a message referencing this USB area any way. It could be just coincidence that a device failed after installing the driver. I had exactly this scenario with a "My Book" USB drive that was causing undefined problems for a while and finally stopped my boots dead. Removing it fixed all weird issues I had been having as well as booting fine.

Next, if the above does not work and you can get far enough to use RECOVERY disks and you made them, try them.

Lastly, If you installed a Windows driver then it may be possible to RESTORE to system default if all else fails. On most Dell computers, when all else fails, you can hit the Ctrl-F11(XP) or F8 (Windows Vista/7) or click the Reset button in Windows 8. All data will be lost but this should restore the computers function.

However, if the 'driver' was actually a bios update then the problem is already on the mother board and doing anything with Windows will not necessarily help. The only fix in this case would be to load standalone bios for the failing devices, IF you can get far enough to boot from CD/Diskette/USB and create them on another computer (if they are even available).

[Bjs]

After removing all non-essential hardware (use a spare mouse / borrow one) the issue remains you have to know a little more detail about what actually happens under windows 8 when a system starts.

Self test post checks ok followed by bios initialization then UEFI (os)

Sounds like UEFI found on hd (windows 8), which is loaded after system bios, has malfuntioned and need to reload windows 8.

Dells are generally DEL, F2, F12 to enter bios just after starting the system.

If you can get into bios, check optical drive is boot option, move it up to number 1 in order and DISABLE hd as boot option ... some systems will boot right past even though you set it to boot from optical media.

Dont forget when its time for system to boot from hd to set it in bios as a bootable option once again.

[ranchhand]

You got a buggy driver, a very common problem from a commercial manufacturer, I am not surprised. I am sure W8 has an F-key that will give you boot options (in my Asus mainboard it's F8, on my Asrock it's F11, etc.). Among those options should be "system restore", or "last known good configuration". I personally prefer "system restore", so select that and pick a date immediately before this problem started (if you have multiple dates, you may not since it's a new unit) and that probably will take card of it.

[wrathofbod]

just a thought..do you have any external hard drives, usb flash drives or memory cards plugged in a card reader, sometimes external storage can hang up post..

[handyguy]

just a thought..do you have any external hard drives, usb flash drives or memory cards plugged in a card reader, sometimes external storage can hang up post..

OP says there are no other things plugged in. Perhaps they should plug things in again & see if that works.

[True Colors]

An update on this situation......

First of all, thanks for all the responses from everyone.

This situation just goes to show, sometimes you just never really know what is wrong.

I will post the results here in case anyone else ever has this same problem and they happen to stumble across this thread.....

My computer has a couple of external storage devices hooked up. One of them is a Mediasonic H82-Su3S2. It holds eight 3.5" sata drives. I also have a few other random storage drives hooked up to my PC as well.

I had more than one of these drives connected to my computer with USB 3.0 cables. For whatever reason, that caused some sort of conflict.

I unplugged all of the USB devices and then restarted my computer. It fired up perfectly. Then I plugged in my large Mediasonic enclosure with a USB 3.0 cable and everything is fine.

Evidently it is okay to hook up ONE of the external drives with the USB 3.0 cable but it is NOT okay to hook up more than one external drive with USB 3.0. I guess the other drives need to connect using USB 2.0.

TC

p.s....... on a side note, it IS possible to get into safe mode in Windows 8. But it is different from safe mode in other versions of Windows. For Windows 8, you hold down the shift key and press F8.

[TSJNachos]

I was just reading this waiting for some UEFI/Secure Boot-related problems. It seems like if you can't boot, getting into UEFI config screen would probably be a pain, with the user not quite able to most of the boot/rescue disks out there working. If I were you, [bTrue Colors[/b] I would look into disabling that crap now, BEFORE something else goes wrong (assuming you have UEFI).

[Budman1]

Just another note on this USB 3 thing. I mentioned that that was the cause of my problem also and unplugging, powering up and plugging seemed to fix.. for a while! Be aware I had only one USB3 device and it caused intermittent and permanent errors INTERMITTENTLY.

What is even more confusing is I purchased a new drive (USB3) and later a new Alienware computer. The same problem reared its head shortly after using the external drive. I have not used it since except to do a backup and then unplug again and have had no errors for months so the problems seem to occur when the drive is plugged in and then booted. Everything seems to work fine if it is plugged and unplugged once the computers are up.

That's 2 USB3 drives on 2 computers. The only thing similar is the drives were My Book type and the computers ran Windows 7. Just thought this my help others.