Question HALLLP! Computer wont boot past bios

Mar 20, 2019
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Hi! This is my first post and I am in no way tech savvy. My husband gave me his old(er) gaming computer to play ESO, it had run perfectly after he had the HDD fixed about six months ago. Yesterday he said there were a few viruses on there that he got rid of, and today I cant get it past the bios screen. It will go to ez mode and reset but goes right back to the bios screen. Can anyone tell me if a new hard drive is imminent, or is there something else we can try? If I do have to replace the HDD, how to I backup my data if I cant get the computer to boot up?😂😂. I'm so green, I know. Thanks for any help! I have pictures, but cant even figure out how to post THOSE with this ... ffs
 

Aeacus

Titan
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Hmm....

The drive itself may be working but i suspect the OS on it is corrupted. Here, you have 2x choices:
  1. Format the drive and re-install the Win. Note: you will loose all your data on it.
  2. Buy a new drive and install Win there. Afterwards, you can hook the old drive to your PC as secondary drive and (when successful) copy/paste all your data from it.
For you, method #2 would be the best. After you have the new drive, take the old drive completely out of the PC so that you accidentally doesn't format it and install Win there. Once you have the PC running with new drive and can boot to OS, the data recovery process begins. To get your data off the dying/dead drive, there are few things to try:

* connect your old HDD to your PC as you'd connect additional drive, with SATA data and power cables. Avoid using any drive docks.
When successful, your PC should read the old HDD as 2nd data drive, from where you can access it and just copy/paste the important data from one drive to another. At all costs, avoid writing anything on the old HDD since that makes the already bad situation worse.

I've recovered several people's data this way when their PC/laptop has died with no ability to boot to OS.

* if given that your PC can't read the old HDD as data drive due to the whole drive corruption, things get though.
Here, you'll need to use data recovery software or use the services of data recovery firm. Do do it on your own, i suggest using Recuva,
link: https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

I've had microSD card die on me (with holiday pics on it) and i had the most success with Recuva. Most of the free data recovery softwares i tried didn't even recognize my microSD card. Recuva was the only one who recognized it and managed to save good part of my pics.

* as a last resort, when all your attempts have failed, you're looking towards using services of data recovery firm.
Depending on how far gone the drive is, data recovery can be very expensive.

As far as images go, you can upload them to any free image hosting site and copy/paste the links here. I've used Postimage and Imgur,
Postimage: https://postimages.org/
Imgur: https://imgur.com/
 
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