Question Windows not booting, no automatic repair, no WinRE ?

[dudewizard]

Hi all,

Posting this at the start of my day, can't really get back on to tinker until this afternoon (EST), I appreciate the responses in advance and will try anything at this point.

My PC was working as normal but crashed yesterday, completely frozen screen. I did a hard shutdown and we started, but got stuck at the windows logo and spinning dots. I tried again, and went to automatic repair, but I just get a black screen with a mouse cursor and nothing else.

I read online about forcing the PC to start with the Windows recovery environment, but that will not trigger. It just alternates between a normal boot that spins and goes nowhere, and the black screen automatic repair.

So I made a recovery drive on another PC, booted into that from the boot menu in bios, went the same direction as the automatic repair screen. Black screen, moving cursor, nothing happening.

The guides I read are about safe mode, recovery mode... I can't even get to any of those.

I can post specs but I am filling this out the morning before work, so they will probably be on another post. The rig except for the GPU and CPU and ram is about 6 years old. Is my SSD shot?

TIA

 

[helpstar]

try getting to the "dos prompt" and use sfc and dism to recover damaged files from a USB drive with a windows image on it (created with windows media creation tool or similar)

Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files - Microsoft Support

Describes how to use the System File Checker tool to troubleshoot missing or corrupted system files in Windows.

support.microsoft.com

 

[dudewizard]

try getting to the "dos prompt" and use sfc and dism to recover damaged files from a USB drive with a windows image on it (created with windows media creation tool or similar)

Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files - Microsoft Support

Describes how to use the System File Checker tool to troubleshoot missing or corrupted system files in Windows.

support.microsoft.com

Good morning, thanks for the response. I am not at my PC right now, but I was wondering: how can you get to the dos prompt from boot? When I try to boot from the recovery drive, it gives me a black screen.

I was looking at this guide here that seems to indicate that I need the recovery drive to boot, but when I try it, I just get a black screen and a movable cursor.

Thanks again.

 

[helpstar]

don´t use the recovery, use the media creation tool to boot from a working image and then get into the prompt.

if you can´t boot from USB, remove the drives and get into the bios, then set boot priority 1 to USB, save and power off. reconnect the system drive and boot from the stick

 

[dudewizard]

don´t use the recovery, use the media creation tool to boot from a working image and then get into the prompt.

if you can´t boot from USB, remove the drives and get into the bios, then set boot priority 1 to USB, save and power off. reconnect the system drive and boot from the stick

Gotcha, thanks, I'll try that when I get home.

 

[dudewizard]

don´t use the recovery, use the media creation tool to boot from a working image and then get into the prompt.

if you can´t boot from USB, remove the drives and get into the bios, then set boot priority 1 to USB, save and power off. reconnect the system drive and boot from the stick

Ok... I'm on the drive I made with windows media creation tool. This time I do get a new thing happening, but it's just a blank indigo ish screen with the cursor. When I get to this screen, the keyboard is also not lit up, making me think it is disconnected. It made me think I wasn't seeing everything on the screen, so I tried a different monitor, and it didn't seem to change anything.

I'll try your boot from stick idea but I don't think thats the issue. Well, I really don't know what the issue is, but why would the screen change if it's not recognized?

 

[dudewizard]

Updating - so with the oldest SSD disconnected, which has windows installed, everything seems to work normal. If it is attached, I get no interface even with the media drive in. I'm trying to get Windows installed on my other 1 TB drive, but it's not letting me install because it is set up as MBR and not GPT.

EDIT: OK, I figured out I can convert to gpt at the install, so I installed windows on my other drive, working just fine now. I'll try later to see if I can get into my old drive, but I'm assuming now that it failed.