Dell Vostro 1000 - Freezes on Startup

My 2008 Vostro laptop worked great until one day when the strap on my bag broke, sending it falling to the ground. The laptop began having problems starting up and progressively got worse. Now it will no longer get past the initial DELL startup screen. After speaking with Dell last week I confirmed that the RAM is tightly installed and that the hard drive is working. What are the next steps in troubleshooting and fixing this problem?

Thanks,
Jeremy

 

Did you try running Dell Diagnostics? That will root out a hardware issue (likely a bad hard drive).

 

I've never run dell diagnostics on a computer before. Is this something that I can run using the boot disk? I will give this a try.

 

If you still have the Dell Diagnostics disc, yes you can boot from it. Also it may have the diagnostic utility still loaded on your drive. You can also download it at Dell's support site.

 

The laptop is no longer getting to the dell screen (where it used to stall on startup). Now it makes some noise as if its starting up (fan etc) but the screen stays black. I tried putting the original operating system boot disk and still nothing, just a black screen.

How could I run dell diagnostics under these circumstances?
Thanks
Jeremy

 

The problem is most likely the keyboard. I know because I literally experimented with every option listed (old battery, drivers etc...) and I noticed when I pressed down on the keyboard my Vostro 1000 booted up and didn't hang.

SO, I removed the keyboard and inserted it into another vostro 1000 and when I tried booting it up it too also hung.

That's when I discovered that a defective keyboard was the issue. I replaed it and lo and behold the Vostro 1000 now boots up normally.

It was a fascinating discovery and I hope if nothing else works for those having this issue, you'll consider replacing the keyboard.

RIch