Hi,
All of a sudden, my new AIO computer stopped booting.
I have 20 years in IT and dealt with hundreds of computers so I'm not exactly a novice. Still, MS keeps surprising me with every new version of their software. Now, I see no option of Safe Boot or Restore. Obviously, Dell ships no external media so I'm not sure how are we supposed to run System Restore of Windows doesn't boot.
I tried all I could find online and all I knew about previous Microsoft operation systems but to no avail.
After login I can see a cursor on the black background. Control+Alt+Del gives me the Task Manager but launching with it explorer.exe fails.
"Troubleshooting" is absent from the reboot menu (Shift + Restart).
Dell diagnostics find no issues, MS Memory diagnostics are also OK. Memory diagnostics is the only option on Windows Boot menu, Safe Mode or any Repair options are missing.
How am I supposed to get Windows 8.1 back, could you please advice?
This computer is one month old and was booted a handful of times only. Windows Update was disabled, at least, that's what I hoped to achieve. Nothing special happened the previous day but the following day it started with some unexpected Dell scan & restore activities (not initiated by the user) which led to the usual Windows login dialog with the annoying black screen afterwards.
Thanks