Hi,
I have a old Lenovo SL500 that I use as a cheap media box. I've got Windows 10 installed on it and it has been running great up until this morning. When I came down it was not responding to RDP requests and it was not listed on Teamviewer. Looking at the machine all there was was a black screen so no aid on whats wrong. I rebooted and all I get after POST is the flashing underscore.
Since that I have tried:
* tried f8 to get in to safe mode, no joy
* Booting into Linux from a pen drive (can see the hard drive but its locked and cannot access it)
* Booting in to the windows recovery console and tried a repair (failed)
* Tried a system restore point (failed)
* Tried CHKDSK /f/R (seems to finish fine with 0 bad sectors but I get the error message "failed to transfer logged messages status 50" - I think thats "normal" when running it from install media)
* Tried fixing and restore post CHKDSK same issues
* SFC /SCANNOW
* BOOTREC /SCANOS (says 0 windows installs found!)
So I am running out of ideas. It seems the Hard drive is fine as CHKDSK is fine but either the boot sector or the OS thats buggered. Before I hose it, is there something I have missed that I can try that is non-destructive that does not involve me re-installing all my programs?
Its not got too much on it from memory the programs I'd installed were:
* Bitdefender
* Firefox
* Aceviewer media player
* Sop player
* VLC
* Flash (yeah I know)
Thanks in advance!
Try to boot into recovery console then type: bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
Then tryF8 again to see if it works
EDIT:BTW, was your Windows installed using UEFI ? or MBR ?
I am not sure how I know. I just installed it as pretty much default on this one from a clean hard drive. Does 10 not use the same tools?
No luck with that
From the Command Console. Type: diskpartthen type list disk as shown below:
If there's an asterisk under GPT column of your Windows OS disk then your Windows was installed using UEFI else MBR.
It can see 2 partitions, neither have an asterisk next to them
OK. So your Windows 10 is using MBR partition scheme.
Download Macrium Rescue disk: Rescue6.1.871X64.iso - Google Drive
Then use: Rufus - Create bootable USB to create a bootable USB.
Boot up from the USB. On the left Panel, click on: Fix Windows Boot Problem
Then try to reboot.
Cheers. It 1 am here but I will give that a try tomorrow
That did the trick. Thanks ever so much. I wonder what caused it
I have had the same issue, but when I tried to fix it in the way mentioned, it said that system32/hal.dll is missing or corrupt. and it will restart itself when a key is pressed.
