My laptop's virus/popup blocker expired a few days ago, so ive been having multiple problems ever since then. This afternoon i go to turn it on, and the background shows up but no shortcuts or bars come up. So, i take the battery out and leave it for a few hours. Who knows what that will resolve. Turn on my computer tonight, starts up fine, then a black screen with "PBR 2...DONE" appears. turn it off, take the battery out, fiddle around with it, nothing. call Dell half expecting to get someone i cant understand and have to wait an hour listening to elevator music, but thankfully i get Barbera. Barbera seems like a sweet lady until my warranty expired. So now Barb wants me to pay 129FUCKINGDOLLARS for a service call fee. "Well cant i just tell you whats wrong and you can give me a general idea how to fix it?" "no erin im sorry thats not how it works". 129 dollars. for one call. OR 139 for 4 support calls. So now im out of a personal computer until i can get over to staples or best buy. Is it time to get a macbook?

you shouldn't have bought a Dell for reasons like this.
bastards.

What this means is "primary boot record 2"

The machine has three partitions from the factory:

1) Dell utility partition

2) OS partition (the one you're seeing here)

3) The hidden DSR / Dell system restore partition.

Not sure what is going on with your computer without sitting in front of it but hope this at least puts you on track to fixing it.

Thanks. I really had no idea what it meant, but i guess i'll get it fixed thsi weekend.

dude, my dell shot FIRE out of the spot where you plug in the power cord. yeah, and i got fucked.

not covered under my warranty apparently.

now my husband gets a free laptop from work. so i dont worry about my lappy anymore.

Hm an ironic twist on kill it with fire, dell tires to beat you to it

Problem solved:

click to view

The problem with Dell? That cute stoner boy featured in the ads from a couple of years ago got busted burning fatties, so Dell fired his ass.

That's the problem with Dell.

The problem with Dell and the other companies is they went too commercial and they're trying to sell PC's to people that know nothing about PC's and usually that's what happens, they sell you less than you need for more than you should be paying. That and built in obsolescence. Most people once they hit the internet for the first time find out they bought less than they should have as far as ram and video, among other things.
Also they contract out their service to large phone bank operations in India or some other third world country, so you're getting a tech that's reading verbatim from a book and hasn't a clue.
Believe me, I've been there. Call at 2am on a Saturday night and you get some sucker in New Delhi that hasn't a clue if your drive is fried or if it's just a missing .bat file. I had to wait till Monday and then get someone american to put in an order for a new drive.
Basically...if you get a hold of an american tech...get his home phone number! I'm dead serious.
If you want something good with few problems...go for a lesser known company...ASUS..the company that makes some of the best motherboards makes some sweet systems for about half of what Dell and Gateway charge. Or you can get someone to build you one for a fraction of what a prebuilt costs.

Shael

Dell I find has inconsistent build quality between its assembly plants. It appears they don't have an across-the-board quality check like the other manufacturers do.

Dell just sucks... I have worked with Dell computers when I was in highschool, and even been tempted to smash my parents one when I used to use it. I have yet to see a dell computer that I like. They always seem to run good for a while, but eventually become slow and crappy.

Posted by emck00 My laptop's virus/popup blocker expired a few days ago, so ive been having multiple problems ever since then. This afternoon i go to turn it on, and the background shows up but no shortcuts or bars come up. So, i take the battery out and leave it for a few hours. Who knows what that will resolve. Turn on my computer tonight, starts up fine, then a black screen with "PBR 2...DONE" appears. turn it off, take the battery out, fiddle around with it, nothing. call Dell half expecting to get someone i cant understand and have to wait an hour listening to elevator music, but thankfully i get Barbera. Barbera seems like a sweet lady until my warranty expired. So now Barb wants me to pay 129FUCKINGDOLLARS for a service call fee. "Well cant i just tell you whats wrong and you can give me a general idea how to fix it?" "no erin im sorry thats not how it works". 129 dollars. for one call. OR 139 for 4 support calls. So now im out of a personal computer until i can get over to staples or best buy. Is it time to get a macbook?

No no no, just install Linux. You'll be fine. Fedora, Ubuntu, both okay for newbie.

L