Question Windows 10 Laptop Fails to Boot, Clean Install Fails

[brenski]

Lenovo Ideapad 320 15-ISK
i3-6006v @2.0ghz / 8gb ram / 128gb ssd

My brother's laptop which worked fine (until it didn't).
The Windows 10 was a preloaded/license that came with the laptop when new.

Now, here's the tale of woe...

Initial Boot Screen:

After a few seconds:

Next Screen:

Enter, F1 & F8 - just cycle to same result
Esc - does nothing at all


Initial Bios
note: I have tried both Legacy and UEFI

Bios Changed Prior to Attempted Clean Win10 Install

Created Win10 Media (USB) and Began Install Process. Selected Language etc and clicked to Install. Approximately 15 seconds later the following screen appears:

The cursor (top left) remains blinking but nothing else happens.

Either this is a serious hardware failure or could the SSD MBR be corrupted? I'm minded toward hardware failure, as I've tried with a different (new) SSD.

One other thing: The SSD itself, upon inspection via external connection to another PC appears to have ALL of the original Windows install in place.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Lenovo Ideapad 320 15-ISK
i3-6006v @2.0ghz / 8gb ram / 128gb ssd

The cursor (top left) remains blinking but nothing else happens.

Either this is a serious hardware failure or could the SSD MBR be corrupted? I'm minded toward hardware failure, as I've tried with a different (new) SSD.

Set boot mode to UEFI first.
Windows appears to be installed in UEFI mode.

Connect external monitor to your laptop.
Does external monitor display same line artifact image?

 

[brenski]

Hi
Thanks for the reply.
As I said in my post - I've tried BOTH bios settings. Outcome is the same.

Cannot get any external display. However, the early stages of the install display fine until after the language settings are selected. Next screen produces image 6 above

 

[SkyNetRising]

Cannot get any external display.

Connect it to a TV with HDMI cable.
Do you not have any HDMI capable TV available?

 

[brenski]

i think you misunderstood me. I connected to an external monitor and despite pressing the correct "Ext Display" Laptop Button, there is NO external display visible.

 

[SkyNetRising]

i think you misunderstood me. I connected to an external monitor and despite pressing the correct "Ext Display" Laptop Button, there is NO external display visible.

Connect external monitor,
press laptop start button,
close laptop lid.
It should switch image to external monitor.

You'll need USB keyboard and USB mouse for this (obviously).

 

[brenski]

nothing at all on external display.
Which is why I suspect a serious hardware failure

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Your problem appears in the third screen shot: "Error 0x0000185"

Your installation is corrupted in some way. Google "Windows 10 Error 0x0000185" for the many ways to approach this. But be ready for a full wipe and reinstall. Though this doesn't preclude an actual drive failure.

 

[brenski]

hi
the clean reinstall is what is failing and resulting in the corrupted screen.
as stated above; i've also tried clean install to new unused SSD - same result, corrupted screen

 

[ex_bubblehead]

with all the changed to BIOS it's no wonder there are problems. Reset BIOS to what came from the factory. This is a UEFI system, leave it that way. You may also have to recreate the installer USB. Use only the tools supplied by Microsoft for this.

 

[brenski]

BIOS has been reset to Default - at least twice - have also tried Optimized setting - both make no difference to outcomes

As for the Install media - I have 3x usb sticks all created directly by MS website...all produce same results.

Convinced this is a hardware issue, but Lord-knows-what.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

As you earlier indicated that this is a "factory install", what happens when you invoke the factory reimage mode at boot? Assuming of course that the factory partition still exists on the drive. If that fails then yes, there is a system problem that requires a visit to the shop.

 

[brenski]

thanks, but recovery settings (already tried) fail completely

 

[ubuysa]

If I understand correctly you can boot the Windows installation media on a USB drive? You said you can start the install process so I'm assuming the installation media boots and runs fine.

Boot the installation media again, but instead of installing, select the 'Repair my computer' option. Navigate to the command prompt and make your HDD the selected drive. Note that it may not be the C: drive - the installation media enumerates drives independently of the real Windows system and sometimes the system drive (your HDD) is assigned a different drive letter. Simply enter the command C: at the command prompt and then the dir command. If the listing is not your HDD then enter the command D: and try dir again. Keep changing drive letters until you locate your HDD.

Once on the HDD enter the command chkdsk /r to check the filesystem on your HDD and check for bad sectors on your HDD.

From what you describe I think a failing HDD is the most likely cause. I say this because the 0xC000021A bugcheck in the BSOD you have is a WINLOGON_FATAL_ERROR, which means that the winlogon process failed. That could suggest either a RAM problem or an HDD problem. However, the subsequent 0xC0000185 error code, which is a Boot Configuration Data error, points firmly at the HDD.

 

[Bob.B]

Lenovo Ideapad 320 15-ISK
i3-6006v @2.0ghz / 8gb ram / 128gb ssd

My brother's laptop which worked fine (until it didn't).
The Windows 10 was a preloaded/license that came with the laptop when new.

Now, here's the tale of woe...

Initial Boot Screen:

After a few seconds:

Next Screen:

Enter, F1 & F8 - just cycle to same result
Esc - does nothing at all


Initial Bios
note: I have tried both Legacy and UEFI

Bios Changed Prior to Attempted Clean Win10 Install

Created Win10 Media (USB) and Began Install Process. Selected Language etc and clicked to Install. Approximately 15 seconds later the following screen appears:

The cursor (top left) remains blinking but nothing else happens.

Either this is a serious hardware failure or could the SSD MBR be corrupted? I'm minded toward hardware failure, as I've tried with a different (new) SSD.

One other thing: The SSD itself, upon inspection via external connection to another PC appears to have ALL of the original Windows install in place.

Put a copy of memtest86 on a flash stick.
Boot the stick and let it run.......no errors allowed.
What happens?

 

[Richard1234]

where you said:

"The cursor (top left) remains blinking but nothing else happens."

have you tried leaving that happening say overnight, because some things take ages, and maybe you didnt give it enough time.

I sometimes have thought my computer has frozen up, when in fact it is just taking ages, can take hours for some things!

get the computer to that point and then say go shopping etc, and see if it is still blinking on return.

the fact it is blinking means it is up to something! as it has to run some kind of subroutine for each blink!

over the years I have installed XP on at least 3 machines and Windows 10 on 2 machines, and more than once on some machines, at some point in the early install, the system will appear to freeze up for ages, but in fact it is busy working on the install. Give it up to 8 hours before concluding it really has frozen up, eg get it to that point before going to bed and see where it is at the next day. With disksalvage also, the software can appear to have frozen up for a long time as it scans the disk. With my Amiga 1200 computer, I hadnt used it for months, then tried booting it up and nothing happened, no boot screen. The doorbell went, I got distracted and forgot the machine, went shopping and when I returned it had reached the bootscreen. I think some rechargeable battery for booting was flat, and now was charged up enough to boot!


Have you tried running without installing Linux Mint from an external optical drive?

I found Linux Mint very compatible with different computers, where you should prepare the DVD from a different machine, and say verify it runs properly on that machine to be sure the DVD is good.

when you run Linux Mint without installing, you can do most things, you might need to prefix shell commands with "sudo ", but with no password needed.

whether that runs or doesnt run might give some further clues. eg if it doesnt run, then its not a problem with Windows as such, nor the hard drive.

whereas if it runs, the problem might be with the Windows image, have you verified the checksum of the Windows image file?

I think Windows and Linux have a verbose boot, where it will display different info as the boot progresses, but I havent tried this recently for either system.

 

[brenski]

thanks guys, finally got the install to pass the stage of actually installing some files. will see how it goes