Stumped again: Please help hardware or software problem?

[J Macker]

I'm putting this in general hardware because I'm somewhat leaning towards a hardware problem, but it could still be windows.

This laptop is a friend of a friend. It was dropped off at my house and the symptom was that windows 8 was getting stuck in the "preparing automatic repair" loop. I've not had to troubleshoot a Win8 pc before. Apparently this problem is fairly widespread and there's 2 main causes from what I've read. The most common causes for this are:
1. Hard drive failure
2. Software update gone wrong (some people think it's just M$ blaming the problem on a software update & instead they think it's a fundamentally broken OS)

The laptop is a Dell XPS 12 9Q23. Main things are:
i5-3337U
4GB ram
128gb Liteon msata ssd
capacitive touch on the LCD that swivels so you can use it as a tablet folded up.

Dell in their infinite wisdom does NOT have any way to boot from USB. Nor does this laptop have a DVD drive.

The other fixes I've read all require getting to the Win8 advanced startup menu. While there are some methods to have the comp restart if the laptop is able to boot to the desktop, there are no hotkeys to get there. From what I've gathered, Win8 is supposed to load it automatically after 4 failed boot attempts. Many people claim that F11 or shift+F11 works to load the boot options, but I could not get it to do so.

So I was stuck. My plan of attack for trying to fix this bugger was:
1. Order a msata to micro sata adapter so I could plug in the ssd to a mobo that would allow me to boot from usb
2. Recover user's docs, pics, etc.
3. Reinstall fresh Win8

When I got the msata to microsata adapter, I plugged in the msata ssd to my Asus Z87 motherboard and booted from a Win8 usb installer.
First, I tried the "automatic repair" option. It did it's thing and I rebooted. For kicks, I tried booting from the msata ssd while it was still plugged into my desktop motherboard. It displayed a few repair messages and then loaded to the user login screen. This was further than it had ever gotten before.

Because it reached this point, this was my first clue that it wasn't a software problem on the ssd. I didn't have the user's password, so I just shut it down then reconnected it to the laptop without the adapter. It still got stuck on the "Preparing automatic repair" loop and wouldn't get past it.

So I then plugged it back into my desktop and booted from the Win8 usb drive again. I tried doing a system restore. That wouldn't work because it reported the hdd was "locked". I read a few threads about that and tried some bootrec commands with the cmd prompt but that didn't work to "unlock" the drive.

Of course there were no recovery images, so that option was out.

My next step was to recover her data so i could try a fresh install. When I booted from my regular win7 ssd and plugged in her ssd as a secondary, I found limewire and about 20 infected exes. I decided to not waste my time trying to clean her ssd and just recovered her docs & pics.

I then shut down, unplugged my ssd & storage drive, booted from win8 usb and did a fresh install of win8 on her ssd connected to my mobo. It worked without problem.

I then unplugged it and put it back in her laptop. It was still stuck at "preparing automatic repair".

I then repeated the steps but with Win7 instead. It worked fine on my mobo, but would hang at the loading screen every time on her laptop.

Because the laptop would not boot to the desktop on a clean install and would hang on the loading screen, this makes me inclined to think that it's a hardware initialization problem.

I then tried ubuntu. Connect her ssd to my mobo, load ubuntu from usb drive, install it. reboot. Seems to work fine on my mobo.

Plug it in her laptop, it loads, a little slow, but it loads!
Now it's doing something weird, it's registering that the letter "O" is continually being pressed. It's on the ubuntu desktop, and it has loaded 2/3 times. One time that it failed to load was a login problem and I believe it was being caused by the O key being pressed.

What do you think is the cause of this problem ? How can I get Windows 8 working properly & get past the boot screen?

I'm going to try to unplug the keyboard ribbon cable inside then connect a USB keyboard & boot unbuntu again. Maybe it's a keyboard problem?

sorry for the wall of text. There's a lot that had to be described.

 

[JGAN]

I would suspect a hardware issue if it doesn't work with different versions of Windows. Have you tried swapping RAM or using only one stick? I had an older Dell Inspiron laptop that would start to load Ubuntu and then hang, and swapping the RAM fixed it.

Also, have you tried a different HDD?

 

[J Macker]

The ram is soldered onto the motherboard in the laptop, so I have no way to test it.

The msata ssd is the only one I have. Because the msata ssd booted and still boots correctly when I connect it to my computer using a msata->sata adapter, I don't think it's the msata ssd. I'd have to order another $15 adapter and wait a week to get it to try using a different ssd with the laptop.

I tried unplugging the keyboard ribbon cable in the XPS12 and connecting a usb keyboard, and Win7 still won't get past the startup loading screen (full install is already on the msata ssd).

 

[JGAN]

Do you have diagnostic software like PC Check? Otherwise try putting MemText86 onto the SSD and boot from that in order to test RAM.

 

[defaultluser]

I'm sorry your friend bought an overpriced toy notebook.

I'm not sure I would bother trying to narrow things down at this point - the drive is confirmed working on another platform, and even if the ram is at fault, you can't replace it.

Just tell her to go and buy a Baytrail convertible for $400, and forget she ever wasted so much money on a POS toy.

 

[JGAN]

default has a good point -- the core components are all one piece, so there is really no point in going any further because if one part is dead, the whole thing is a loss. Part it out and call it a day.

 

[J Macker]

Yeah I think I have to concede defeat and cannot conclude 100% what the problem is. While it's a fun challenge, I've already spent too much time on this. I could try memtest but at this point if there is or isn't a problem with it doesn't matter because I can't fix it either way. If Ubuntu had worked properly then I'd be more inclined to keep trying.

She's going to have to find out what a replacement system board will cost and decide if she wants to go that route.

Its rare to be unable to fully diagnose a problem but with these lousy laptops there's very limited options for testing parts. I think I've done everything that's possible without buying replacement parts from dell.