Hello,

We need to start out with some basic information which includes the following:

The specs on your computer including is it a desktop or a laptop, what operating system, what type of drive is it as in is it a mechanical drive or is it an SSD, we also need to know the age of the machine and what happened around the time that you encountered this problem. Once we know some of the basics we can proceed further but without that information we can’t even get started on troubleshooting.

Sincerely,

Wonder Woman

 

Hi! Sorry, I’ve never asked for PC help online before! It’s a laptop, about 3 years old. It runs Windows 10, and it’s a HDD.

Every single startup takes me to Automatic Repair, which takes about 30 mins before restarting and doing the same thing.

 

Hello,

Not a problem there’s a first time for everything and I have made my career working on corporate computer help desk so I’m familiar with helping both experienced and inexperienced computer users. Forgot to tell you happy new year. Sounds like you have a good machine not too old and since it’s not too old I am believing it is not a physical issue with the drive having died because on a three-year-old machine that’s extremely rare which is a good thing. To rule this out I’m going to walk you through some things. We need to make certain that your machine is in fact seeing that drive at the most basic level of the computer which is called the BIOS. We don’t need to make many changes in there but it would help if you have some sort of a mobile device to take a picture of the screen when we get in there. To get in there you need to turn the computer completely off let it sit for approximately 30 seconds doesn’t have to be exact and then turn it back on and start hitting usually the escape key which is abbreviated by the letters ESC. You may have to hit it a couple of times but it should eventually get you into a screen that’s very basic looking. Not knowing the manufacturer or the model which is perfectly OK it would help if you take a picture of that screen when you get it up and then upload it on here. From there I will be able to walk you through how to go in a little bit deeper and make sure that the drive is being physically seen. We will not be making any changes we are just validating that the drive is physically OK. After that you’ll be able to restart the machine.

A couple of things to note the first being I am a night owl but right now it is 4:00 AM in New Jersey in the United States where I am and I’m about to go to sleep so I will not be able to reply to you immediately but I think Asians when something I am participating in the forum gets updated so I’ll be able to get back to you when I get up today. The second thing to note is there are wonderful amounts of people that are knowledgeable many even more knowledgeable than me that will probably see this posting continue the process and I’m starting with you. You don’t have to feel like you have to stick with any one person we all love to help people on here. The last thing that I will tell you before I go to sleep is what I am suspecting is that your Windows operating system may have gotten screwed up in someway making it no longer in the condition of the computer to understand how to run the machine and get into windows which is not the worst thing in the world. That being said, if I am correct in my suspicions I will be able to or others will be able to walk you through how to get things fixed but we’re not gonna jump the gun and go 15 steps ahead.

The last thing I want to ask you is do you have your files backed up anywhere? When I asked about your files I am referring to any documents or pictures or music that are important to you. And if you don’t wanna discuss that and see what options we can figure out for you

Go ahead and try doing what I suggested if you don’t get into the BIOS I hitting the escape key like I suggested don’t panic many manufacturers use other function keys instead of the escape key so we can figure that out as well when you reach out to you indicating press this key or that key to get into the bios if you see that and he did not escape key you’re like a fractured something different and you should say instead of the escape key. Yes you do that don’t Picture of a float here so we can see what’s going on and how to help your specific machine. Either I or someone else will continue helping you have a good night or a good day depending upon where you are located.

Sincerely,

Wonder Woman

 

What is the Make and Model # of your laptop?
Your HDD is Failing or it has already failed. You can remove the HDD from the computer and attach it to a working computer via a USB Adapter, Dock or Enclosure with a power adapter. Once the now external drive is powered up, put your ear next to the drive. Does it make a clicking or scaping sound? Or does it spin up, and then spin down, or is it cold, no sound or vibration. These last 3 scenarios are that of a failed drive and it will need to be replaced.
If the drive is spinning up plug the USB cable into a working computer. The drive should come up and you can copy any of your User Files (ie) Documents, Desktop, Downloads etc to another drive or that computer. And you then can run Diagnostics on the HDD but the bottom line is this drive should be replaced with an SSD drive.

 

So, I’ve done quite a bit of testing, and I think it is still detecting the hard drive. I’ve gotten all the way to running the CHKDSK c: /f command, but that cancels at the very end (I believe because I’m not running it on an Admin cmd window, because I can’t boot up far enough to do so?). It detects the drive and scans every file, but cancels out when it’s time to fix it. I’ve tried restoring Windows from the same menu, but the options it gives are ‘restore from cloud’ and ‘restore from files’, neither of which work. I’m having a friend bring over Windows 10 install files on a usb and hoping I can do it that way. Does that sound like it might fix the issue?

 

Also, thank you for being so kind, Wonder Woman! A very happy new year to you, too! I really appreciate the help from everyone, and apologise for my memory being rubbish meaning I don’t always remember everything I’ve tried. I swing wildly between computer illiterate and competent Google repairer each day!

 

If you can get to the Command Prompt run the check disk command with the /r Switch. (ie) chkdsk /r this will scan the drive for Bad Sectors and tries to "Repair" it so it is going to take a very long time. If it fails, cancels out, the HDD has failed and needs to be replaced.

 

Hello,

I noticed when I went into my own bios settings the other day that built into it is a Drive tester feature. You may want to check inside your bios to see if it offers something similar. If your hard drive is bad and you have files on there that you really need you may have a chance at taking the drive out of the machine putting it on a side and when you get your computer back up and running with a new drive and get the operating system installed on it you can get a cable that will connect the internal bad drive to your USB port and see if you might get one last look or use out of that drive without putting the requirements on it to be your start up operating system drive and you may be able to look at it as a normal secondary drive to get your files off of it.

Sincerely,

Wonder Woman