[SOLVED] Stumped...PC is NOT working..

JoshTheG

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There was a power outage in my area today, and my PC was sitting idle at the time. The outage lasted quite awhile, so I decided to start unplugging devices, my PC was included. I simply switched my PSU on/off to "off", in the hopes that when the power kicked back on, my PC wouldn't get hit with a big surge....Well....

When power was restored, I toggled the PSU to "on" and tried to turn on my PC. It seems to start normally, showing the MOBO option screen, and then it starts a loading circle and Windows 10 never posts at this point. It will sometimes go further and say "Preparing Automatic Repair", but it just goes to a black screen...

I have turned it on/off 5+ times now, and I cannot get any OS to start. I have no clue what has happened...Can anyone help me? Or is my PC possible totally fried?!
 
Solution
HDD/SSD is a VERY likely culprit, as soon as you pass the bios splash screen you start using your hdd/ssd
if you pc "hangs" there then there is an issue with your boot drive

I only stumbled on this thread just now, but i had the same issue not too long ago, and that was the solution

howtobeironic

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Not like the motherboard or PSU, more like Windows was on something important when the outage happened. See if you can boot from something else, here is a guide: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/linux/create-a-bootable-ubuntu-usb-flash-drive-the-easy-way/

If you can, go ahead and create a Windows 10 USB. Boot from it, choose keyboard layout, choose "Repair your computer". Then try the startup repair. Will post back with more commands if that fails to work.
 

JoshTheG

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cannot get any OS to start?
You tried different OS? Live CD? Linux?

IF you have screen your pc is not fried, just maybe some important windows boot files are damaged.
If you didn't try different OS.... try and boot in safe mode and try system restore.

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10
Use option 2 to boot to recovery (safe mode).
I tried that, but the same issue where it simply goes to a black screen happens. Windows 10 logo isn't ever showing up.
 

JoshTheG

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maybe only windows was corrupted while not shutting down normally

if safe mode doesn´t work,
use the media creation tool of Microsoft to get a bootable USB flash drive, boot from it and try repairing windows with it
I will try this. I have so far learned that you need to use some programs to make a correct bootable drive....the worst thing is that I only have access to a Mac right now, so I can't even use the "RUFUS" program to make this easy on myself :(
 

JoshTheG

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Not like the motherboard or PSU, more like Windows was on something important when the outage happened. See if you can boot from something else, here is a guide: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/linux/create-a-bootable-ubuntu-usb-flash-drive-the-easy-way/

If you can, go ahead and create a Windows 10 USB. Boot from it, choose keyboard layout, choose "Repair your computer". Then try the startup repair. Will post back with more commands if that fails to work.
Thanks, in the process of trying to create a bootable USB now, using a program called UUBYTEISOeditor, the only one I could find that works with Mac...
 

JoshTheG

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Not like the motherboard or PSU, more like Windows was on something important when the outage happened. See if you can boot from something else, here is a guide: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/linux/create-a-bootable-ubuntu-usb-flash-drive-the-easy-way/

If you can, go ahead and create a Windows 10 USB. Boot from it, choose keyboard layout, choose "Repair your computer". Then try the startup repair. Will post back with more commands if that fails to work.
I made a copy of Win10 ISO on a USB, but it still doesn't want to boot to anything. Changed order to boot to the USB in BIOS, just goes to black screen with a "_" flashing.
 

JoshTheG

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I've been screwing around all day;

My motherboard BIOS eventually switched to a 2nd version due to the failure to boot. (Has a main and backup BIOS, dualBIOS board) This 2nd version was from sometime in 2012, and I continued messing around until I finally was able to get into Windows 10 with "Windows Boot Manager" as my priority boot drive.....

I also had to have my HDD unplugged (even though it only has game files on it, I think?), and my SSD was still plugged in, as that is what I had installed the OS on originally.

Once this aligned, I could boot into Windows - although it was much slower than before - it got there. Of course, I have no files that were on my HDD, but everything from the SSD is working it seems. I took this time to use the official Windows 10 media installation to get the OS on a fresh USB drive, and also transferred my important files over to an external drive.

So, I have now Q-FLASHED my mobo BIOS back to the latest version, and it started up this time for some reason.

Is it possible that having my HDD connected is causing all the issues of Windows 10 not being able to properly boot?? Should I simply invest in a new HDD, or keep trying to troubleshoot? I am lost right now as what to do next.
 

howtobeironic

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If you had the second HDD plugged while installing Windows it has a chance to write the bootloader to it instead of the system drive but usually problems derive from this manifest the other way, windows won't work if you have it unplugged. Still, might have happened if you had a Windows bootloader on the HDD and reinstalled Windows on the SSD, and your motherboard chose to prefer the HDD's (that boot you to nothing but a underscore) bootloader over SSD's bootloader.
 
HDD/SSD is a VERY likely culprit, as soon as you pass the bios splash screen you start using your hdd/ssd
if you pc "hangs" there then there is an issue with your boot drive

I only stumbled on this thread just now, but i had the same issue not too long ago, and that was the solution
 
Solution