My laptop was acting a bit weird, so I restarted it and when it came back on all I had was a blank screen and the cursor. After searching around for help online and finding no solution, maybe someone here has had something like this happen or knows how to fix it.

I've tried the system restore but it failed and said I should run chkdsk /r. I did and best I could tell it said no corrupted sectors but it did have an event log status 6 or something like that. Tried resetting the PC and it hung at only 2%.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Update: I tried resetting the PC again and this time it didn't hang up, but it told me was unable to reset and that no files were changed.

Still turns on and the circling dots appear then just a blank screen and cursor.

If you dont have a true backup to restore to, then your best bet is to create a windows 10 restore flash drive and use that to reinstall windows while keeping your files (or if your laptop manufacturer gave you one with the purchase, use that). You will need to reinstall your programs after though, hope you have your install keys.

I had to do this recently to my old gaming laptop that i let sit dormant for 2 years and then tried to update it. Windows borked itself and i had to do the above and now it runs like a brand new machine.

Thanks, trying that now. I got a new thumb drive and I've gone to "Create a Recovery Drive" in the control panel. It seems to be taking a while, there is a screen that says Please Wait and a progress bar that is just cycling. Just wondering how long it could take or if I need to try something else to make the recovery usb.

It can take a long time, especially if its a usb 2.0 drive vs a 3.0 drive. Its writing a ton of individual files so its slow.

Yeah, not long after I posted it finally started and I now have the recovery drive. When you did this, were you able to keep your files or did you have to do a fresh install?

orrintaylor said:

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Yeah, not long after I posted it finally started and I now have the recovery drive. When you did this, were you able to keep your files or did you have to do a fresh install?

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Files, yes, programs no. I did the full reinstall fix, the boot fix option wouldn't fix it for me.

Once in recovery mode (hard reset by holding power button until hard shut off 3 times in a row to quickly get here)
Go to Troubleshoot - Advanced Options - Reset this PC

You will then have multiple options, these 2 are ones i remember. I went with the first.

Keep my files

Keep nothing

Select the option that suits your needs and click Reset

Thanks, I've tried a couple times to reset with keep my files and each time it has said it couldn't reset the pc. So it seems like I might be screwed.

Trying now to create a bootable windows iso usb to maybe salvage at least some files.

You may have a bad hard drive. Can probably still get some files off it. I would buy a SSD drive and swap it for the hard drive. Then use the recovery USB stick to put a fresh install on the new drive and you can get a cheap cable to copy files from old drive to new. Where are you located?

I've gotten into the drive and am in the process of copying files, just slow going. Transferring them from the my laptop to an external onto another laptop for now. I'll then try resetting with a fresh install on mine.

I don't think the drive itself is bad at least I hope not. It was working, except when I tried to open some of microsoft's games, solitaire, mahjongg, etc the program would open the close immediately so I figured if I restarted it would work itself out, but all I got was the black screen and my cursor.

Now that I've gotten everything I want off my drive, I am ready to re-install windows 10 from the bootable usb. I've started the installer program and it is asking where to install windows, then it lists the current drive partitions.

Do I need to format my drive before I go forward with the re-install? I just don't want to mess things up further.

I would delete all the partitions until you just have one big chunk unallocated. Normally I would then just click next but since I still have suspicions about whether your drive is going bad or just a corrupt windows, go ahead and format. It will take longer but will tell you if it runs into too many bad sectors etc.

Although at this point I would be sticking a SSD in there anyway to bump up the performance…

The screen I am looking at lists five partitions of drive 0:

Partition 1 - SYSTEM_DRV
Partition 2 - MSR (Reserved)
Partition 3 - Windows
Partition 4 - LENOVO
Partition 5 - WINRE_DRV

3 & 4 are categorized as Primary

Which of these can/should I delete? I read somewhere that creating a partition just for loading Windows onto, is that a good idea or just a waste of time?

I am old school and a bit of a rebel but I always delete all of them until there is just one big unallocated partition and reinstall. Depending on what brand of computer you have it may recreate some of them. I am a Dell guy and don't know much about Lenovos. You may wait for someone else to weigh in but if you have all your files then I would zap them all and just start from scratch.

YMMV and it is New Year's Eve. So…

If you have all your data, wipe all the partitions and remove them and do a full clean install. Do you have your windows key? Its usually on the device itself as a sticker. This will get rid of all the bloatware and partitions originally installed.

Once the drive is clean, select the empty drive with no partitions and windows will create its own during install.

Thanks for the help y'all, unfortunately I can't find a product key anywhere on the machine. I don't remember having to type one in when I got it 5 years ago. After a bit more reading about this it seems like it activated itself when I set it up initially.

I'm done messing with it for tonight though. Happy New Year

If you are lucky, Microsoft will auto activate based on the hardware alone. As long as you have a Microsoft account that this pc has logged into before it might work. If it doesn't then you might need a new key, whixh is dirt cheap on ebay for a 10 key. You can install without it and windows will run just fine but you will have the big watermark telling you its not activated yet. Thats all.

Just select I don't have a key and proceed with install and it will activate after install. If not let me know I will give you a key. Happy New Year.

Thanks again for the help, I am back up and running now. Installation and activation went fine, it never asked me for a key. I really appreciate that offer Tailgate.

Now I just have to reload my programs and then transfer all my files back onto my machine.

No problem. Don't forget to add a backup solution. Happy New Year.