[Question] Computer won't boot

[Dave]

First, I won't be around for a few hours to check responses. I'm posting this then taking off to get my shower done and go to Sammi's wedding. But I plan on working on this tonight so I thought I'd get a quick take. By the way, I'm posting this from my laptop.

It worked fine last night and I haven't done anything although there was a fucking Windows update last night that caused it to reboot at about 2 am. So since then it's been cycling through the loading screen and dying right away. Here's a short video of what is happening.

I have a usb to boot but bootrec /fixboot did nothing. If my SSD died I'm going to be seriously pissed. I've only had it a year.

 

[PatrThom]

I'd suggest trying Safe Boot, but am not sure if just holding Shift will do this any more in 10. I know F8 doesn't work any more unless you mess with the settings. Otherwise you'll just have to manually shut the computer down during boot a few times in order to force it to try startup repair.

--Patrick

 

[Dave]

Haven't left yet. I tried that and it didn't work. Doesn't even bring up the system repair screen.

I'm leaning more & more to the SSD taking a shit. So here's what I'm going to do (later).

• Use the USB boot disk and wipe the SSD & reinstall Windows. I won't lose very much. The only thing I had on the SSD was the OS and a couple of Steam games.
• If when I do that I can't repair the C: boot I'll get a fairly small external SSD (don't have any more space for internal storage) and see if it reads the current C: drive.
• If it doesn't read the C: drive I simply replace it with the external.
• If it DOES read the C: drive and I can repair it that way, I unplug the external and set it aside for next time.

But it starts tonight with my seeing if I can reinstall Windows. I don't have any disks as it was all downloaded. So much fun.

 

[PatrThom]

If the SSD crapped out, though, I wouldn't expect it to even give you the attempt to boot.
Is your CPU fan not spinning or something? An unexpected overheat could behave like that, too. I'd take at least one trip through the BIOS health screen to see if anything looks out of place before turning my attention to the SSD.

--Patrick

 

[Dave]

I’ll check the hardware when I get home as I’ll have more time then. Right now I’m reloading windows. Figure it can’t hurt since I’m not really losing anything.

 

[Dave]

The reinstall of Windows has it up & running. Of course, now I have to clean out all the extra shit that Windows loads. Ugh. No, Microsoft, I DON'T want Candy Crush on my PC, thanks.

After the wedding I'll take it apart and reseat everything, give it a good cleaning, and then go from there. It needed it. But at least the SSD looks like it's still good so far.

 

[GasBandit]

Sounds like the bootloader took a shit. That happens sometimes, unfortunately. There's a way to repair it using the installation media, but since you've already reinstalled, it's moot at this point.

 

[PatrThom]

Once everything is up and running again, you might want to take a moment to create some installation media (or even a second boot drive) for... just such an emergency.

--Patrick