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Computer Boot Issues

TruvidiennTruvidienn Member UncommonPosts: 346
in Hardware
Greetings!

So I gave my wife my older PC before buying a new laptop for her anyways the PC has been moved around a lot and lately it's just not wanting to boot back up. Before this it somehow got itself stuck in a boot loop over and over again and before that it refused to open any programs saying something about how it was not authorized to do it.  I have to spam F8 or F12 to get to the advanced options upon boot up however when I try to delete all files and start fresh it'll get to 3% then "Undoing changes" then I'm back to square one.   Startup Repair tells me nothing is wrong with it.. but clearly something has to be.  After the windows logo screen sometimes I'll see like a white line of some sort and then I'm stuck on a black screen...    

Just looking for help before possibly taking this to a shop..
Thanks!


Comments

  • maskedweaselmaskedweasel Member LegendaryPosts: 12,195
    When you say "when you try to delete all files and start fresh" are you saying you're trying to reinstall windows? 9 times out of 10 that's what a repair shop will end up doing if you bring it to them.



  • TruvidiennTruvidienn Member UncommonPosts: 346
    edited July 2021
    When you say "when you try to delete all files and start fresh" are you saying you're trying to reinstall windows? 9 times out of 10 that's what a repair shop will end up doing if you bring it to them.
    Yeah. I have the disk and everything that I need to do it. 
  • maskedweaselmaskedweasel Member LegendaryPosts: 12,195
    Truvidienn said:
    When you say "when you try to delete all files and start fresh" are you saying you're trying to reinstall windows? 9 times out of 10 that's what a repair shop will end up doing if you bring it to them.
    Yeah. I have the disk and everything that I need to do it. 
     Where does it fail in the reinstall? Are you attempting to format first? 



  • TruvidiennTruvidienn Member UncommonPosts: 346
    maskedweasel said:
    Truvidienn said:
    When you say "when you try to delete all files and start fresh" are you saying you're trying to reinstall windows? 9 times out of 10 that's what a repair shop will end up doing if you bring it to them.
    Yeah. I have the disk and everything that I need to do it. 
     Where does it fail in the reinstall? Are you attempting to format first? 
    I can get to the blue screen where it asks me to reset my files and ask do I wanna confirm it  then after that it it'll act like it's deleting all files and at 3% that's the error I run into.  Or when I can get to windows login screen it cancels itself on every key I press.  I just see the wallpaper and clock in bottom left corner and thats it.  Would upload a video on here if I knew how. 
  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 24,271
    edited July 2021
    What version of Windows is this? This is suggestive of disk damage, moving the PC can cause that.
  • TruvidiennTruvidienn Member UncommonPosts: 346
    Scot said:
    What version of Windows is this? This is suggestive of disk damage, moving the PC can cause that.
    It was originally Windows 7 then eventually got updated to Win10. 
  • VrikaVrika Member LegendaryPosts: 7,973
    edited July 2021
    If you don't care losing all your files, have you tried to just delete the hard disk partitions:

    1. Boot into windows installer

    2. When asked "Which type of installation you want", select "Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)"

    3. The installer should ask you "Where do you want to install Windows".
       If you have only one hard disk, delete all of its partitions.

    4. Assuming you have only one hard disk: Once you've got only "Drive 0 Unallocated Space", select next.
       Windows should make new hard disk partitions automatically
     
  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383
    edited July 2021
    I agree with the likely cause being a corrupt hard drive. 

    That said, a couple additional suggestions:

    If the computer has been moved around a lot, it's worth popping open the case and making sure everything is still seated well. A DIMM, cable/power connector, or video card could have shifted loose. Sometimes just pulling that stuff apart, give it a good dusting while you have it open, and plugging it all back in will work.

    If you can get to the point where Windows lets you boot - run a disk scan to check for bad sectors. If you aren't able to get Windows up and running, there are various bootable thumb drive images you can get to scan the hard drive from a bootable image (Including the Windows 10 installer: https://winaero.com/open-command-prompt-boot-windows-10/ -- from there run chkdsk, assuming it sees the drive)

    If you do end up wiping the hard drive, if you do a Full Format (not a quick format) during the Custom Install like Vrika suggests, the Full Format option will automatically scan and flag any bad sectors while it's doing the format. It does take a while to do though (sometimes hours)... whereas a quick format is only a few seconds)
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