[boss]

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable.
PXE-061: Media test failure, check cable.
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.

so i have the dell mini 9 and i lent my laptop to my bro for a month or so. then i started getting this message when i booted and i cant fix it. i dont have an external hard drive or the operating system cd anymore. soo i called some people around my area that fix computers and they say it cost between 30-50$ to reset it and restore the operating system. but when i read up on the forum that other people were getting this problem they were saying that they sent their old laptop to dell and got a new one due to it being a hard drive problem? am i able to do this? and if possible can i get any suggestions for the fix? when i boot i can get to the cmos menu thing but i dont have the password to get into it and i have no idea what it would be. HELP! and thanks for reading.

[holmes4]

That message simply means that you don't have the Ethernet cable connected. Which I am sure you don't. Why is it looking for the Ethernet cable? Because it can't find any bootable disks.

If you don't have the BIOS password, you'll need to get it. You are unlikely to make any progress without it. I have seen eBay sellers offering a service to provide you with the master password for your unit, based on the alphanumeric Dell Service Tag code.

Once into the BIOS you can see if it recognizes the SSD (that's what Mini 9 uses for a "hard disk"). It may be that the SSD has failed. You might try creating a bootable USB flash drive (with Linux or something else on it) just to see if you can get that to boot.

[boss]

is there any way i can get the phoenix bios master key without having to buy it?

[holmes4]

If you are the registered owner of the Mini, Dell support would give it to you.