Question Can’t boot due to failed partition

[Djarcn]

I got my PC prebuilt in 2016. It came with windows 8.1 and I got windows 10 as part of the free giveaway download. The PC had a drive partition from the factory and I hadn’t even realized it until a year later, as the specs had said it had 2 drives, but upon opening it up to install my sound card I found that it was in fact a single drive. By that point I was too lazy to move everything around to drop the partition.
Now the partition seems to have corrupted, and the part that had Windows 10 install failed and no longer appears in the boot menu, meaning I cannot boot my PC. This problem occured first a few days ago but resolved itself after a simple restart. Now it has completely failed and Asus Bios is saying it’s a CSM problem (It’s assuming it just can’t read it but i’ve ruled this out as it can read the other partition).
I have a repair disk for Windows 8.1 in the garage, I am now just waiting for the key to come home to go unlock the garage. But before that, can someone walk me through or link me to what I will have to do? From what I’ve gathered, I’ll have to reinstall windows 8.1, attempt to repair the partition, and if that fails reinstall windows 10.
Tl;Dr: Partition with Windows 10 installed on failed; not a hardware failure. Have repair/recovery disk for windows 8.1, want to know what steps I’ll need to take.
HUGE EDIT: so the disc wasn’t a repair disk. Instead of giving something that important, Asus gives an sales pitch on a disk talking about how they are “in search of incredible”. Thanks Asus.

 

[Colif]

Does the bios see the hard drive at all? It is difficult to go forward if the hdd isn't showing at all.

On another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB - use this as repair disk

change boot order so USB is first, hdd second

boot from installer

on screen after languages, choose repair this PC, not install.

choose troubleshoot

choose advanced

choose command prompt

Follow this: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-rebuild-the-bcd-in-windows-2624508

 

[Djarcn]

Does the bios see the hard drive at all? It is difficult to go forward if the hdd isn't showing at all.

On another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB - use this as repair disk

change boot order so USB is first, hdd second

boot from installer

on screen after languages, choose repair this PC, not install.

choose troubleshoot

choose advanced

choose command prompt

Follow this: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-rebuild-the-bcd-in-windows-2624508

Yes, the BIOS reads one PARTITION of the HDD, what I assume was the D: drive since it is about the same size. I have the USB and am trying this now, thank you!

Edit 1: So I attempted this and seems I may have been more or less right. At the moment I do have a (part) of my HDD being detected, but following the steps on the link you sent broke down at step 9 where i got the first option from step 5 once again.

Edit 2: heartbreaking news. I used diskpart in cmd and found that both 1) the disk is detectes as being COMPLETELY free and 2) “There are no partition on this disk to show”...
HOWEVER: According to the cmd wmic logicaldisk get size,freespace,caption : the disk has space being used, although it alpears to be about 1/3 of the disk where as I was using no less than half this at least gives me hope. Using the cmd C: dir disagrees with how much space is being used, stating only 1,943,498 bytes are being used, and if this is true then it seems at least 4,200,000,000 bytes arent adding up between the drives total and free space... maybe EVERYTHING got corrupted down to 1/3 of the drive?

Are there any reasons this may have happened? My current understanding is that the partition appeared to be gone, and IS gone, as somehow the disk got COMPLETELY wiped overnight? Backstory: I was on the computer until 11:30 pm on sunday 2/10 and first attempted to get back on it at 8:30 am on 2/11(9 hours later). The computer was force shut down, but hadn’t been acting up, I was just being forced to turn off all my electronics and rushed, could force shutting down (holding power button, not pulling the cord) really have wiped the disk?

 

[Colif]

I don't think power down like that would wipe disk but it could corrupt the way windows shutdown is meant to work.

If you have Fast startup turned on (its default) then at shutdown, your PC is meant to save a copy of all working drivers + the kernel; into ram so when you power PC up again, it is already half loaded and bounces into action. Turning PC off with power button over rides that as its a hardware setting. So Windows never gets a chance to save anything. This problem can also happen if you unplug a PC that has fast startuip turned on

What brand is the hdd? Some hdd makers have tools you can use on their drives to check health. I would check drive is 100% fine before trying to reinstall win 10. I don't think you can rescue it from this state

Curious if this lets you see windows -
change boot order so USB is first, hdd second
boot from installer
on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt
type notepad and press enter
in notepad, select file>open
Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or hdd

 

[Djarcn]

I don't think power down like that would wipe disk but it could corrupt the way windows shutdown is meant to work.

If you have Fast startup turned on (its default) then at shutdown, your PC is meant to save a copy of all working drivers + the kernel; into ram so when you power PC up again, it is already half loaded and bounces into action. Turning PC off with power button over rides that as its a hardware setting. So Windows never gets a chance to save anything. This problem can also happen if you unplug a PC that has fast startuip turned on

What brand is the hdd? Some hdd makers have tools you can use on their drives to check health. I would check drive is 100% fine before trying to reinstall win 10. I don't think you can rescue it from this state

Curious if this lets you see windows -
change boot order so USB is first, hdd second
boot from installer
on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt
type notepad and press enter
in notepad, select file>open
Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or hdd

The HDD is Toshiba.

Booting to the USB, I can only access the USB itself and the “X:” virtual boot drive windows repair sets up. It acknowledges that I have 2 other drives in the PC (which WOULD be the HDD and my CD Drive), but identifies one as “Usb Drive (D” and the other as “CD Drive (E” but doesnt allow access to either. Could it be the PC is somehow misreading the drive? Might it be worth it to take it into a shop and see if another PC reads the info on the HDD as is?
My second problem is the only other Windows computer I have is a small HP laptop with a 25gb internal storage thats made to only surf the net, so even making that Windows Media Drive, I had to borrow a friend from my CompSci classes laptop... so any checks I do would probably have to be done at some sort of shop from here on...

MAJOR UPDATE: just realized... the C: dir and the other one I tried are listing the USB as the C: Drive. CMD can’t access the D: drive at ALL. The closest thing it gets is in the Diskpart program run through CMD it knows the total size and “free space” on the Drive, but it may then still have my data... is it possible that the windows media drive can’t access it and that is why I cant fix it with command? Could it be locked behind my old admin locks? My BIOS has admin access but does this Media Drive?

Clarification: The D: drive is the HDD, the C: Drive is the USB with windows media drive.

 

[Colif]

You said diskpart can see drive, so what is only showing the USB and CD drive?

I would see if another PC can read anything off it. Toshiba don't have a tool to check drives but you can always create an ultimate bootcd on USB and use one of its tools to check drive out.

 

[Djarcn]

You said diskpart can see drive, so what is only showing the USB and CD drive?

I would see if another PC can read anything off it. Toshiba don't have a tool to check drives but you can always create an ultimate bootcd on USB and use one of its tools to check drive out.

Using CMD Directoryitself or Notepad as you suggested reads only the USB, and the virtual “X:” drive.

Trying to use the commands “D:” or “E:” return “The Device is not ready” indicating it knows there is a device but cannot read it. This is confirmed by Notepad showing them, but not allowing me to access them. The one problem is notepad identifies the “D:”Drive as a USB drive, when my HDD is a SATA drive, not an external HDD.

Using “Diskpart” then “list disk” lists “Disk 0” as “Online” with “2794 GB” size and “2794 GB” Free.

My Theory: Cmd line in and of itself does not have access to the HDD for some reason unknown to me, but may or may not still have my data. My explanation is that CMD and Notepad identify it as there in some form but don’t have access, and not having access may explain why the drive appears COMPLETELY empty to Diskpart, which seems about impossible to me that it would have 0 bytes used at all.

P.S. I apologize profusely if I am tiring you out or being a great bother. I am grateful for all your help and time. I just want to be sure I did what I could before throwing out the money I was gonna use to upgrade my GPU to go see if I can even salvage any data at some computer repair shop, or worse yet, simply have to restart with a wiped HDD...

 

[Colif]

Disk format may be set to raw that will stop you reading anything off it - https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/hard-disk-became-raw.html

need to check it in another PC and see what it finds

 

[Djarcn]

Disk format may be set to raw that will stop you reading anything off it - https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/hard-disk-became-raw.html

need to check it in another PC and see what it finds

So more or less: I need to remove my HDD, take it to a shop or plug it in to another PC, download the tool, pray, then try to fix the problem using the wizard? Can I put it on a USB and run it from the CMD line on my computer?

And the second option would be to just reset the drive by writing over it with windows update and since Toshiba doesn't have a tool, pray that the HDD isn't simply broken until it inevitably does this to me again?

 

[Colif]

It depends if the Disk is seen as raw. Seems power loss might be reason hdd is acting like this.

this rate its probably cheaper to just buy a new hdd and go from there.