Infinty loop on startup, can't seem to find hard disks

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JonnyRogers

JonnyRogers

PCHF Member
Jan 13, 2023
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Hi there

Today I received an odd issue whereby my wife and I's laptops (different makes and OSs) have encountered crashing and restarting problems at the same time, resulting in booting issues. My Lenovo laptop (running Windows 11) seems to have come out OK, as I had the option to Reset it on the Windows Automatic Repair function, but my wife's HP Notebook 15, (running Windows 10) hasn't been so lucky and is stuck in the infinity blue screen/booting options.

When she starts the Automatic Repair function, there is no Reset option. Once prompted to choose keyboard layout, she has the option to troubleshoot, but Start-Up repair says "it couldn't repair the PC". There is no option to enter Startup Settings (and thus go into safe mode or anything like that) as I have read about elsewhere.

When we try the options suggested online using Command Prompt, we try to search for the drives (C:/ D:/ etc), but nothing is located, instead we get "A device which does not exist was not specified". However these drives show up when we run DISKPART> LIST VOLUME. We have also had an error message saying they're RAW.

We also tried to reinstall Windows 10 via a USB stick, and when that loads and I select "Custom: Install Windows only (advanced", I'm getting a message saying I'm "unable to create a new partition or create an existing one", despite being able to see the various drives. It also won't let me format any of them - (error message 0x80070057), or delete them (error 0x800701b1).

When I got into the BIOS and managed to do a diagnostic scan, I did spot an error saying "hard drive/ssd smart check software error", which is obviously concerning...

Can anyone shed any light onto:
a) what caused two laptops to have this issue simultaneously
b) what my wife's issue is
c) anything we can try next?

Happy to provide any further information to try and help fill in any blanks!

Cheers
Jonathon
 
G'day Jonathon and welcome to the Forum. (y)

for 2 separate laptop's to have the same('ish) issue would suggest they both had the same (dodgy) software installed at the same time, or both infected after visiting the same website - who knows.
if the planets were aligned, maybe it's just really bad coincidence..... doesn't really matter going forward but would be good to know to avoid it in the future.

sounds to me like the Win10 laptop has a drive failure.
if there is data on it you want recovered, first priority would be to remove its drive, put in into an external enclosure and connect it to your PC and see if it's readable - if so, get the data off it.
if not - you have a dead drive.

how old? - under warranty?

if you have that Win10 USB stick connected as the PC boots, and have it configured to boot from USB first, it'll start the reinstall process of Win10, one of the first screens offered allows you to delete all current partitions - do that and reload the OS onto a then, newly wiped drive.
let Win10 create the partitions it needs automatically.

that process will highlight any problems with the drive, ie: if the process fails, you have a dodgy drive and it's time for a new one.
 
I can only assume that it was a Windows update or something - they were also both plugged into the same electrical socket so I don't know if there was a power surge or something like that?

My wife's laptop is coming up to three years old, so isn't under warranty.

When I tried to use the USB to reinstall Windows, all worked fine until I was prompted to select a drive, and then I was getting error messages saying I was unbale to create/edit the partitions, or delete them. Is there any way around that, or does that prove the drive is broken beyond repair?

Thanks for your help!
Jonathon
 
Sorry as per rule : 17. PCHF will not offer assistance on behalf of other people. This is for security reasons. This means someone posting and asking for assistance for someone else is not permitted. Thanks for reading this and let's make PCHF a great place for everyone to enjoy.
 
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