I bought a really cheap Dell at Walmart two years ago while traveling. Our laptop got virused on the trip and we needed a computer fast. I think I paid $299.00 for a 17" running Win7. It had a year warranty so I figured I could return it at any Walmart during the trip. Never had a bit of trouble with that machine. I don't even know what size hard drive or any specs. Its just used for photos and works well. I have bought computers at Best Buy. Never had any problems either. Never had to return anything. Still have an old HP Win XP netbook (remember those), which works great. We have a bunch of old Dell desktops and laptop which still work. They were purchased from Dell directly. No problems there either. I don't think it really matters where you buy unless you require support after the warranty runs out. Never had that happen and I don't buy contracts. Our problem is - what does one do with all these old computers which still work? I wouldn't worry about where to buy a new one. Jane

Here is a nice graphical tutorial on how to do what bpgreen did with the computer for those who might wish to try it. I might have to consider that as I now have 2 physical drives both with 2 partitions on them. Interesting, thanks for posting that info.

I want to thank you guys and girls with trying to help me. I finally figured out how to send a snip it the long way around: 1. open hotmail (do NOT try to send from snip it) 2. snip picture 3. copy the snip it 4. paste into a new message from the already opened hotmail account 5. add send to address and subject line 6. click SEND 7. long way around but it does work (will NOT work straight from the snip it) I do appreciate the help offered here. plantbug

I appreciate your assistance. It appears I have to obtain Recovery data. The machine with the problem is my wife's. My machine is very similar except I have Windows 8 upgraded to 8.1. It was purchased a few months later and could not get another Win 7 machine at the time. Anyway, I have recovery media on my machine and copied it to a thumb drive. But her machine does not recognize it and still unable to get any response from F keys, etc. All I get when attempting to boot is a blue screen with white lettering like I was in the Safe mode asking for a password. However it will not accept any characters. I've looked on eBay and will order one and we see where we go from here. Again, thanks for your comments. Best wishes, Tom