HDD wont boot to windows suddenly after a year of working fine

[AverageNerd344]

Hey everyone, long time lurker, new to posting. Sorry if my formatting is a bit off.

About two days ago, my pc refused to boot, instead showing only a white blinking cursor in the top left corner. I had experienced this problem before when my HDD was not detected, so I took of my side panel and checked my connections. I was pretty surprised to find no problems, so I power on again and enter my BIOS to check all of my settings. Boot order was fine, SATA mode was all good (although one time my hdd was detected as a PATA which it is not) so I reset all of my BIOS settings to their defaults. Reset, still no hope. For some reason, It loaded into the EFI shell. I decide maybe it is something deeper than what I am doing, so I reset my CMOS. It resets fine, but doesn't work unfortunately. At this point, I am willing to lose everything on the drive and do a clean install of Windows 10, so I create an ISO on a USB and attempt to format the drive. Of course, it shows up unnamed and having 0mb. I restart the tool and click 'repair this device' and start scanning. It comes back with an error code 0xc0000084 which I can't figure out how to fix. I would be really grateful if one of you talented people could give me a hand. Thanks in advance.

 

[ArtPog]

It really helps potential responders to your query if you would provide clear, detailed information re the precise problem you're experiencing together with a detailed description of the PC system involved, to this end...

1. First of all, is your present communication to this forum having been generated on another PC? Or the "problem" PC using a different drive?

2. What kind of a system (the problem one) are you working with? Is it an OEM machine - laptop or desktop? If so, what's its make/model?

3. Or is it a "generic" desktop PC you or someone else built? Motherboard make/model?

4. The system was working just fine up to two days ago? It booted without incident and the boot drive functioned without any problems?

5. So "out-of-the-blue" it doesn't boot - just a blinking cursor, right? And you have no clue why this might have occurred?

6. What's the boot drive? I take it Win 10 had been installed on it? How & when was it installed? A fresh install or an upgrade from a previous OS?

7. And other drives in the system? If so, have you disconnected them and tried booting to the boot drive when it's the only drive installed?

8. Have you checked out the boot drive (and any other usually installed drives) with a HDD/SSD diagnostic program. (Since you obviously have a working PC I assume you could connect the boot drive and other drives as secondary drives to check them out).

The above should give you a fair idea of the kind & type of info that would be helpful to potential responders to your query. Provide whatever add'l info you think might be helpful.

 

[AverageNerd344]

Hey, thanks for the reply and tips about posting, I will take them into account in the future. Below is the information I missed in my OP:

1.) I posted this from a generic laptop, therefore I don't think it possible to test the drive using diagnostic tools.

2.)The PC I am having problems with is a custom built rig that I built myself about a year ago. In that time, I have never had any problems as significant as this (just the occasional loose cable). Specs at the bottom of this post.

3.) Up until about 2 days ago, the PC booted without fail as it normally would.

4.) As far as I am aware, there have been no significant changes to my PC over the last few days. I have changed no drivers of had any Windows updates.

5.) The boot drive is the drive that I am having problems with. It is running Windows 10 pro, installed fresh from an official USB from Microsoft. I have no other drives in the system.

Specs:

CPU: AMD FX-8350 @4.0Ghz
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 7970 Ghost edition 3gb
Memory: Kingston DDR3 @1333Mhz
Drive: WD Blue 2Tb

 

[ArtPog]

You can install the HDD or SSD diagnostic program on a laptop and connect the drive to be tested as a USB device. Of course this assumes you have either a USB external enclosure or one of those USB-to-SATA cables. In a few instances, however, the diagnostic program won't test a drive connected as a USB device

(As an aside - for future reference - consider purchasing a USB external enclosure + a HDD you can use for storage, backups, and whatever. It's always a useful device to have around).

Anyway...

The first thing that comes to mind in situations like yours is a defective or corrupted boot drive. The drive may not be the problem but as a first troubleshooting step we nearly ALWAYS test it to see if it's defective. The WD Drive Fitness Test is a good diagnostic program for WD disks and I'm nearly certain it will test a WD drive connected as a USB external drive. So if it's possible...

Another possibility would be if you could get your hands on a desktop PC and connect your WD HDD as a secondary drive in that system either internally or externally to see if it's detected and to also test the drive.

Or as a last resort obtain a HDD (any would do as long as it's not defective) and attempt a fresh-install the OS on that drive and see what happens.

Another thing you might try is to create the Windows Media Tool...
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
but this time use the tool to create the Win 10 installation directly on a USB flash drive. Don't use the ISO file. (You'll be doing this from your laptop, of course).
Select the option "Create installation media for another PC" and go through the steps to install the Win 10 setup files directly onto the flash drive.
(It's a shot-in-the-dark but might work).