[SOLVED] PC suddenly won’t boot Windows, tried all I can think of ?

[exej]

My PC (4 year old, custom gaming PC bought on ibuypower) has been working perfectly. Today I was using it just fine and went to restart it. Suddenly it won’t boot. It gave me the message “Repairing disk errors. This might take over an hour to complete.”

I let it run and it went for about 3 hours. Still didn’t work. Windows won’t boot.

I‘m only able to access the generic BSOD menu. System restore doesn’t work, reinstalling from the cloud doesn’t work, etc. Basically none of the options work except cmd command line. I spent hours and hours on google trying everything recommended with command prompts (cmd) with booting, scan disk, and checkdisk, and no luck.

This PC has no optical drive so my reinstall discs are useless. The Microsoft cloud option didn’t work (shocker).

one strange thing I noticed browsing the directories using cmd is that it says my windows and all my files are on drive D, when they should be on C. I only have one hard drive. In BIOS, only one hard drive is listed. Is this normal? Is it trying to boot windows from a drive that doesn’t exist?

Before I take it to a repair shop or just get a new one, can someone help me try to fix this? I’ve exhausted my current level of knowledge. Thanks!

 

[Colif]

chkdsk can take a long time if its a large hdd with lots of data on it. It might have just needed time.

This PC has no optical drive so my reinstall discs are useless. The Microsoft cloud option didn’t work (shocker).

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

if you running off ram, its common for windows to change the drive letters.

I can show you how to copy info off PC and put it on a USB or something so you don't lose everything
I can also show you how to reinstall windows as we can try that and see if that fixes it

once you have an installer on USB
how to copy info:

• 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

how to clean install windows
follow this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-do-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10.3170366/

its possible your hdd is on its way out, but we can at least try to put windows on it. replacing drive is pretty easy, you may not even need a repair shop to do that.

 

[exej]

Thanks. I am going to try the USB repair tonight. Will update with how it goes.

Also, thanks for the notepad trick! I had no idea about that. Was able to get all my personal files backed up to my external HD.

 

[exej]

Thanks, it worked perfectly! Reinstalled windows from a usb flash drive and then updated all my hardware drivers.

Works like new and it’s very fast! Rebooted it a few times to make sure. It was definitely corrupted win 10 install.

Is it safe to delete the windows.old folder?

 

[Colif]

That is odd, you shouldn't have a windows.old on a clean install?

windows always fast when its new and empty.

 

[exej]

That is odd, you shouldn't have a windows.old on a clean install?

I‘m not sure but I looked into it a bit and I read that it can be deleted with no issue, so I deleted it to free up some space.