PC won't boot

[Cantaloupeman]

So this hard drive is acting up a ton. It keeps giving me messages saying preparing auto repair, and diagnosing pc. Then it gives me a blue screen. Will wiping the drive fix it or should I just get a new one. It works on and off. Sometimes it works for a few weeks then gives me this screen. I have no idea what to do.

[ProjectBox153]

Looks like a Windows 10 issue, not a drive issue. Reinstall the OS and you should be good.

[DodoDodo123]

If you don't wanna waste money, try to wipe the drive, If that does not work, then just buy a new one!

[Emperoroffire101]

If it's not boot-looping, congratulations! You have avoided custom built PC hell!

[Cantaloupeman]

3 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Looks like a Windows 10 issue, not a drive issue. Reinstall the OS and you should be good.

Well I already did that when it happened before and it was fine for a while until it happened again. Should I wipe it? It isn't new it was an old drive from my gateway sx series pc I had. I ripped it out of there to use in my new gaming PC but it is giving me issues again. How long does wiping take?

[Keevoman]

I work for a tech support company and spent all of last week fixing this. What was the original OS you installed on the computer? My client had bought the laptop with Windows 8.1 and used a free upgrade to Windows 10. The newest Windows 10 update broke their install and they ran into the same error you did. I tried 100's of solutions but the only thing that worked in the end was using Windows Media Creation Tool to create an ISO or install it on a flash drive and use that media to do a fresh instillation. Once I did that, it was as simple as finishing the install and copying over the users data from a flash drive.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention the OS I reinstalled in the end was 8.1 because Windows 10 was and is not supported on the laptop (HP 15) and therefore none of the drivers worked because of the new update. Might be a good idea to backdate to Windows 8.1, far fewer issues and better driver support. Some suggest Windows 7 which is my personal favorite but it will be losing support within the next few years and updates will need to come from a third party.

[Cantaloupeman]

9 minutes ago, Keevoman said:

I work for a tech support company and spent all of last week fixing this. What was the original OS you installed on the computer? My client had bought the laptop with Windows 8.1 and used a free upgrade to Windows 10. The newest Windows 10 update broke their install and they ran into the same error you did. I tried 100's of solutions but the only thing that worked in the end was using Windows Media Creation Tool to create an ISO or install it on a flash drive and use that media to do a fresh instillation. Once I did that, it was as simple as finishing the install and copying over the users data from a flash drive.

 

Edit: Forgot to mention the OS I reinstalled in the end was 8.1 because Windows 10 was and is not supported on the laptop (HP 15) and therefore none of the drivers worked because of the new update. Might be a good idea to backdate to Windows 8.1, far fewer issues and better driver support. Some suggest Windows 7 which is my personal favorite but it will be losing support within the next few years and updates will need to come from a third party.

Well yeah the PC with that hard drive came with Windows 8. I free upgraded to windows 10. How do I wipe the hard drive to get it so it has nothing on it? I want to do a clean install of windows 10. I don't need to wipe it so much that the data can't be recovered but how can I get it so that nothing will be on it? 

[Keevoman]

2 minutes ago, Cantaloupeman said:

Well yeah the PC with that hard drive came with Windows 8. I free upgraded to windows 10. How do I wipe the hard drive to get it so it has nothing on it? I want to do a clean install of windows 10. I don't need to wipe it so much that the data can't be recovered but how can I get it so that nothing will be on it? 

Have you tried opening the Repair settings when booting? When you boot your computer this time, right away start hitting F11 a bunch until it brings up your recovery. In there you have the ability to try revert to a backup windows created for you, or an install that may not wipe your data. There are 5-10 different utilites within this that should help you a lot, if you have not already accessed these.

[Cantaloupeman]

6 minutes ago, Keevoman said:

Have you tried opening the Repair settings when booting? When you boot your computer this time, right away start hitting F11 a bunch until it brings up your recovery. In there you have the ability to try revert to a backup windows created for you, or an install that may not wipe your data. There are 5-10 different utilites within this that should help you a lot, if you have not already accessed these.

Well if I do get back in it will most likely happen again. How can I wipe the drive so that I can do a fresh install?

[Keevoman]

1 minute ago, Cantaloupeman said:

Well if I do get back in it will most likely happen again. How can I wipe the drive so that I can do a fresh install?

This will be before you hit the error or get to the boot stage. This also would be the best place/way to wipe it and/or do a fresh install. 

[Cantaloupeman]

6 minutes ago, Keevoman said:

This will be before you hit the error or get to the boot stage. This also would be the best place/way to wipe it and/or do a fresh install. 

What is the best way to wipe it? I heard dariks nuke thing works well. But which method should I use in my case? Because in my case I'm only trying to get it clean to where there is nothing on it. I don't need to make sure noone can access my data because I'm not getting rid of the drive. So it's not important whether or not the data is recoverable.

[Keevoman]

You don't need any third party software to wipe your drive. The recovery I am talking about is built into your OS and is part of the Recovery partition. You can accomplish everything you need in there without any other software. Just reboot your computer and hit the F11 key until it boots to the recovery. There it will be easy to do a clean install.

[Cantaloupeman]

1 minute ago, Keevoman said:

You don't need any third party software to wipe your drive. The recovery I am talking about is built into your OS and is part of the Recovery partition. You can accomplish everything you need in there without any other software. Just reboot your computer and hit the F11 key until it boots to the recovery. There it will be easy to do a clean install.

We might not be on the same page here. A clean install is different than resetting to factory settings right? Clean install means when there is nothig left on the drive. Like how when you buy a new HDD at the store and have to install everything from scratch?

[Keevoman]

Those are both options you can choose from in the Recovery options. You won't do any damage booting to the Recovery so you might as well take a look at what I'm talking about. If you really want a clean install, when you are re-installing Windows 10 you can choose to format each partition. Once you do that, all data in that partition is gone. Clean.