Windows not booting after Dell e1505 battery change

[CurlyQ]

This is my first post. I'm not a techie but I try to learn how to fix problems by searching forums. My latest problem has me stumped. Since I'm not a techie - take that into consideration when giving advice. I see a lot of posts that say "Update you BIOS settings - without any explanation on how to do that. That's basically what I'm asking here. Here's my issue:

I have a Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop, also known as the Dell 6400. My battery died so I bought a new one. It’s not a Dell battery but it is supposed to work with my computer

I probably should have turned the laptop off before changing the battery but I didn't- I changed it out when the computer was on and running. Nothing bad happened... the battery charged and all seemed good. But then Windows installed some updates and rebooted and now I can't get past the Dell start screen. Instead I get the following error message:

We apologize for the inconvenience, but windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this.

If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly or was automatically shut down to protect your files and folders, choose last known good configuration to revert to the most recent settings that worked.
If a previous start up attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the reset button was pressed, or if you aren’t sure what caused the problem, choose start windows normally.

Safe mode
Safe mode with networking
Safe mode with command prompt

Last known good configuration

Start windows normally

----------------------------------------------------
I have tried each option without success.

I have also tried the following things to no avail:

■Booting with the old battery and without the battery
■Removing the batter y and unplugging the power supply for a period of time because I read this could reset the BIOS/CMOS settings.
■Pressing F2 to enter the Bios Settings
■Under System > Battery Info - says 100% charged
■Under System > Batter Health – This battery is performing normally
■Under Maintenance > Load Defaults I chose to load the factory default values for all setup fields overwriting any changes you have made.

I read in another post that someone with a Dell 8400 had the same problem after replacing the battery. He resolved his issue the following way:

When I changed the battery I didn’t save the BIOS settings and when I rebooted they were incorrect and even set to factory settings it wouldn’t recognize the hard drive. Found settings from another dell user with same machine and now all working ok.

I do not understand how to change the BIOS settings other than what I tried above. How do I change the BIOS settings if Windows does not start? Could it be something other than the BIOS settings? The computer is running BIOS Revision A15.

Thank you for any help you can provide.

 

[CurlyQ]

I figured out how to update the BIOS settings but that did not help. I then reinstalled the operating system. It seems to be working now. Fingers crossed that it's truly fixed!