Lenovo Ideapad z585, doesn't boot?

[jtpetch]

Hi, I've got quite an issue with my laptop.
So, I've had this laptop for a while, and it worked well enough, until yesterday. I had shut the lid to put it to sleep, like I always do, and came back a few hours later to find windows frozen. Like completely, no mouse movement, no indications that anything is going on, frozen. So, I turn it off by holding the power button down for a few seconds, wait a minute, and turn it back on. It does its normal boot screen (Lenovo logo, with a circle of spinny dots near the bottom), but for much longer than it normally does, and then it goes to a boot menu. Now, I've dealt with this kind of thing before (recently actually, on my main PC), and my first thought was somehow the bios screwed up. So, I go to the Lenovo website, only to find that their BIOS update/recovery is an exe. To be run on the computer, inside of Windows. What I had intended to do, was what I did to fix my main PC a bit ago: Make a USB MS-DOS boot stick, throw the BIOS update files on there, and boot from the stick (which worked). But, I don't know if that will work with an EXE, and I also don't know if this laptop will boot from it.
I had just recently re-installed a clean Windows 8.1, by the way, and I am almost certain I don't have a virus, because I have Win. Defender running (I know, I know), and this thing sees almost no action except note taking at my college and recording some gameplay through a capture card.
So, sorry for the wall of text here, but I could really use some help with this.
Thanks!

 

[Saberus]

When you re-installed Windows, did you use the button next to the power to run it from the recovery partition? If not you might be facing an issue with a missing driver for a critical part.

 

[captaincharisma]

have you tried going into safe mode?tap F8 while booting

 

[jtpetch]

@Saberus Yes, I pushed the small button next to the power button, and selected the USB stick in the boot menu.
@captaincharisma No, I haven't yet (because no prompts came up like a normal bios), but I will try that.

Just to see if it would work, I created an MS-DOS boot disk anyway, put the EXE on it, plugged the stick into the laptop, powered on using the small button, and selected the USB_HDD from the menu.
Right now, it has the lenovo logo on the screen, and it says "Diagnoing your PC" under the spinny dot thing. I'll let it go for a while, but if it doesn't do anything, what should I do?

 

[Saberus]

Try the F8 prompt that captaincharisma suggested, start hitting it as soon as you power on, since the BIOS does a fast-boot almost instantly into the OS. (If you see the spinny dots, it's already booting Windows and you've missed your shot.)

If it doesn't run, you can try sending it in to Lenovo for repair if it's still under warranty. Though as an owner of a z585, I know that's not exactly likely given the age of the line.

 

[jtpetch]

@Saberus I tried that, spam clicked F8 with all my might as soon as I hit the power button, didn't work. Tried it again, but holding F8, didn't work.

 

[Saberus]

Try F5?

 

[jtpetch]

@Saberus Nope, nothing. Again, tried spam clicking, and holding.

 

[jtpetch]

*bump* Still needing help with this.
I just tried to see if I could get the laptop to boot to anything at all, and nothing.
I tried a Win 8.1 reinstall disc, and usb, nothing
Multiple Linux distros, disc and usb, nothing

 

[Saberus]

Have you tried taking out the capture card if it's still connected? It could be the hard drive's died, or worse, the BIOS corrupted.

 

[jtpetch]

Have you tried taking out the capture card if it's still connected? It could be the hard drive's died, or worse, the BIOS corrupted.

Er, sorry, I was unclear about the card. It's an Elgato HD60, and it connects to the laptop via USB. There is nothing to remove.
Is there any way to check the hard drive?
And, I am able to get to the bios menu and such, so I don't think it's that.
(Also, i accidentally selected your answer as best, they should really not make that button so prominent in their emails :/)

 

[Saberus]

Best way to check it is connecting it to another system and seeing if it sees it, or booting to a live CD/USB and checking.

Unselected the best answer for you.

 

[jtpetch]

Best way to check it is connecting it to another system and seeing if it sees it, or booting to a live CD/USB and checking.

Unselected the best answer for you.

Sorry, I'm not understanding this. Connect what to another system?
And, while I have tried to re-install Windows, it hadn't occurred to me to try linux. I'm going to make a simple Linux distro live CD and see if it'll boot from that.

 

[Saberus]

I meant move the hard drive over to a working system as a secondary, just to see if it shows up.

 

[jtpetch]

Ok, I just tried to boot with multiple Linux distros, and it all ended the same way it has been, Windows' "Your pc has encountered a problem" blue screen thing, and then it goes to blackscreen.
I tried: Porteus (a fav of mine)
Linuxmint
Ubuntu
Kali
And they all did the same.

 

[jtpetch]

I meant move the hard drive over to a working system as a secondary, just to see if it shows up.

Ok... The only other working system I have is my main PC, a custom built tower.
How would I go about removing the HDD from the laptop?
And also, why would an HDD problem cause it to not boot from any other media?

 

[Saberus]

The laptop has a single screw holding the bottom panel on, the drive is in easy view with the panel off. Then it's as simple as connecting the data and power cables.

It could potentially be holding up the boot process because it's first in the boot order, and part of the windows core files are damaged.

 

[jtpetch]

The laptop has a single screw holding the bottom panel on, the drive is in easy view with the panel off. Then it's as simple as connecting the data and power cables.

It could potentially be holding up the boot process because it's first in the boot order, and part of the windows core files are damaged.

Ok, I'll try that now.
(Clicked the stupid best answer thing again!!! Althoguh, you do deserve it :3)

 

[jtpetch]

Ok, so I've never taken apart a laptop before (towers many times, but never laptops).
Which of these things is the harddrive?
(Also, yes, I have an electrostatic bracelet on)
http://i.imgur.com/cctL4oz.jpg

 

[jtpetch]

Uh, also, it may just because its still connected, but it doesn't look like that HDD will be able to plug into my main PC, which has normal 3.5 SATA plugs.

 

[Saberus]

It's the big black thing in the middle, held down by three screws (one at the top and two at the bottom. And SATA data and power cables are the same size whether it's 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch.

Also, now's a great time to clean the fan and heatsink with a bit of canned air, if you have it. The dust-cleaning feature doesn't really clean dust, it just cycles the fan a few times.

 

[jtpetch]

I don't have any canned air, but it's not very dusty (surprisingly). I've wiped most of it off with my finger (again, connected to my electrostatic bracelet, of course.)
Ok, so I removed the HDD, and have connected it to my main PC.
When I turned it on, it displayed the same message the laptop does (windows encountered a problem).
After having a heart attack, I realized that it must be trying to boot from the laptop drive. It was, i switched the boot disk to my main drive, and it booted normally.
The laptop drive does not show up in explorer, HOWEVER, it DOES show up in Disk Managerment!
(Disk 0 is my main drive, disk 1 is my secondary storage drive, and disk 2 is the laptop drive.)
http://i.imgur.com/vPSLTbm.png
I smell progress!

 

[Saberus]

Looks like the main partition is seen as RAW (Basically unformatted) and not NTFS or GPT. Is this an XP machine? If so, try booting the PC to the linux boot disk and see if it shows a partition. If not, the partition could be corrupt, and needs a good scanning.

 

[jtpetch]

Looks like the main partition is seen as RAW (Basically unformatted) and not NTFS or GPT. Is this an XP machine? If so, try booting the PC to the linux boot disk and see if it shows a partition. If not, the partition could be corrupt, and needs a good scanning.

My tower PC is a Win 8.1 machine, the laptop is also Win 8.1
EDIT: Oh, wait, that makes sense now. Ok, booting the tower to it now...

 

[Saberus]

The tower, since we can get that to boot. Mount the main partition of the laptop drive (If it will let you without formatting it), then try to get a disk scan running on it to check for errors or recover the MFT (Master File Table). This might help you recover the data on the drive.

If you don't have any data you need to save, you do have the option of just formatting the main laptop partition as a new disk, put it back into the laptop, and re-install windows with the Lenovo Recovery partition.