Windows 8 Boot Problems

T_J_G

T_J_G

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Tim
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My other half has a HP Pavilion G6 laptop that we're having some problems with.

It was working fine yesterday but went to use it today and it has the following problem. when started it goes to the initial screen with the HP logo but after a while it says "Your computer has a problem and is going into recovery mode". After that it goes to a HP screen and says 'Preparing Automatic Repair' but then it just goes to a blank screen.

I can't get it into safe mode for some reason but I can get into a Start Up Menu, that holds all the system info, diagnostics, boot device options, BIOS setup and system recovery. I have tried system recovery to no avail. I've also tried putting a Windows ISO on disc and booting from that and changing the boot order in the BIOS which seem to have no effect. To be honest I'm out of my depth and just following random things on the internet!

We don't have a boot disc for Windows 8 either as we made one when we got laptop but we've moved a couple of times so it's been lost.

I think its a hard drive problem as that's what came up when I ran a diagnostics check.

Can anyone suggest a way forward? As it's going out the window shortly!

Thanks :)
 
First question - is there anything on there you must not lose, and is it backed up? If you don't have a backup of essential data & you think the HDD is failing then stop now and don't keep trying to fix it: instead get a drive caddy & copy your precious data to another computer.

Next off, if the drive is failing (not impossible) then consider a replacement HDD and fresh reinstall - no point in trying to reinstall to a failing drive.

What message did you get about the drive from diagnostics?
 
It's a laptop that's about 18months old but hasn't been used a great deal, so a full wipe is definitely a possibility. There's nothing on there that'll be lost forever, be a bit annoying with some of the software that's on there that we don't have a copy of but not too bad.

The message didn't give much away...got a picture on my phone but the battery's dead at the moment of the message but if I remember it was just a long code.

How would I go about a fresh install with no windows installation discs as they don't supply them anymore?
 
In all likelihood, there is a recovery partition on the disk.
Google indicates pressing F8 or F11 (not sure which) at boot will get you to some options that allow you to recover to factory settings (fresh out of the box), although I also found something about needing to have created recovery disks yourself....
Anyway, it's worth a look.

If the disk is dying, then cloning it (at least the recovery partition) to a new disk is probably worthwhile.

You say it's only 18 months old. Have you spoken to HP support? 18 months is a bit early for the disk to die.
 
I shall try F8 and F11 in a moment.

Not spoken to HP as it died yesterday and been at work all day today
 
I thought you were onto something, tapped F11 and it went into recovery mode but after thinking for a while it just went to a black screen.
 
does sound like the disk might be dying. You could try HP but they probably won't give a toss as it's over a year old.

You could take this opportunity to buy an SSD and give that computer a new lease of life (it'll be quick quick compared to before).

I've got an SSD in mine, 3 years old and not even considering replacing it yet. Great long term investment.
 
Not interested in a SSD for this particular laptop. May need to pull out the HD and reload windows if I can find the liscence number.
 
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