Windows 10: How do I fix my Dell Inspiron laptop?

If you got the Windows 10 update to activate when you first installed it, you can do a clean install from a USB thumb drive and it'll activate again on the same hardware. Of course, you'll lose all applications and files that were there before, but it sound like you've probably trashed them already by trying to re-install 8.

That may not bring you much joy if you've been burned by the upgrade already. I have no idea what went wrong. Maybe it did a bad driver update.

Your Inspiron 3520 is not listed as tested for Win 10 by Dell. That means nothing more than it says; it's still likely to work under 10, but Dell support won't give you any assistance with the upgrade.

Have you got any competent nerdy friends? Sounds like you could benefit from a little help. I can't recommend paid help at places like Best Buy or Staples, as I've heard too many horror stories about them.

 

Hey thank you for your replies. So I downloaded 8 to the USB stick and went and put it in "dead" USB port and tried turning my laptop on but got nothing. So I just left it there for a while and came back and tried turning my computer on and it started booting up. But it booted back up to windows 10 and started installing updates by itself without me doing anything. So I let it do its things and now it's working just fine so far. I don't know if it just needed a 3 day nap lol but the USB did download the 8 media file to my computer, so I'm assuming that if I ever need to go back to it, it's there already?
Is there anything I need to do to check and see why it shut off for so long after the upgrade? Thanks so much for your help.