Windows 10: Cannot boot or reinstall windows, or wipe drive

Discus and support Cannot boot or reinstall windows, or wipe drive in Windows 10 Installation and Upgrade to solve the problem; Hi all. I have a Windows machine Dell XPS13 9350 that got corrupted during an update. I cannot access the Windows startup menu, as the Dell loading... Discussion in 'Windows 10 Installation and Upgrade' started by anelson0528, Mar 29, 2020.

  1. Cannot boot or reinstall windows, or wipe drive


    Hi all. I have a Windows machine Dell XPS13 9350 that got corrupted during an update. I cannot access the Windows startup menu, as the Dell loading screen continues indefinitely after the BIOS startup menu. I have tried to reinstall Windows from a USB stick, but was unable to reinstall or repair the operating system. Further, I am unable to change modify or delete any of the partitions on my hard drive. I have reseated the SSD drive with no effects on the behavior.


    I've also tried accessing and wiping the partitions from Ubuntu running from a USB stick, but again am unable to do anything to the hard drive due to "input/output errors." Interestingly, I can still access everything on my hard drive from the Ubuntu USB stick, and have used that capability to back up all of my data on an external drive.


    I'd like to completely wipe the SSD drive and start over from scratch, but cannot figure out how to do this since I keep getting blocked. Any advice would be very welcome. Thanks in advance for your help!

    :)
     
    anelson0528, Mar 29, 2020
    #1

  2. Windows 7 booting off wrong drive?!?!?

    Please move if this is in the wrong place.

    I have two hard drives, a 1.5TB drive, and a 160GB drive. Windows is installed on the 1.5TB drive, as are all my files and programs. The 160GB drive has a bunch of old files, and apparently the bootmgr and boot folder. Nothing else is on the 160GB drive, other than media files etc.

    If I remove the 160GB drive from the machine, windows refuses to boot, plug it back in, it works fine. The setup with two hard drives I have now is temporary, as the 160GB drive will go into another machine.

    My question is, can someone give me a step by step on how to make windows force to boot off the 1.5TB drive, ignoring the 160GB drive in the boot process completely?
    I don't know how to do this in Windows 7, on XP I would just run the /fixmbr command and its related ones.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    Note: I would really really rather not have to wipe and reinstall, I know it can be done without one as I've had this issue with XP before.
     
    speedy11131, Mar 29, 2020
    #2
  3. How to wipe a hard drive

    modder I already used kill-disk. The deletion is done, I need to reinstall everything.
     
    floridajerseyguy, Mar 29, 2020
    #3
  4. Cannot boot or reinstall windows, or wipe drive

    How to wipe a hard drive

    Sounds good, but I can't load any cds upon boot or even in windows.

    I tried to run Win XP pro cd my friend made for me. It wouldn't work becuase The software is so corrupted. The hard drive itself is fine I just need a way to completely wipe the hard drive of everything.

    I don't want to just reinstall over the corrupt mess of windows. I want to start over not reinstall brand new OS and have corrupted programs, settings, or info
     
    floridajerseyguy, Mar 29, 2020
    #4
Thema:

Cannot boot or reinstall windows, or wipe drive

Loading...
  1. Cannot boot or reinstall windows, or wipe drive - Similar Threads - Cannot boot reinstall

  2. Help! Reinstall windows without wiping the drive.

    in Windows 10 Gaming
    Help! Reinstall windows without wiping the drive.: Hi there, not used old Acer laptop in 5 years, I got to login on laptop which runs on Microsoft, but asking for password I used 5 years ago! Call Acer, they say call Microsoft and ask “reinstall windows but not to wipe drive”. I’ve called Microsoft and I’ve been passed around...
  3. Help! Reinstall windows without wiping the drive.

    in Windows 10 Software and Apps
    Help! Reinstall windows without wiping the drive.: Hi there, not used old Acer laptop in 5 years, I got to login on laptop which runs on Microsoft, but asking for password I used 5 years ago! Call Acer, they say call Microsoft and ask “reinstall windows but not to wipe drive”. I’ve called Microsoft and I’ve been passed around...
  4. Constant BSODs even after reinstalling windows and wiping drive.

    in Windows 10 BSOD Crashes and Debugging
    Constant BSODs even after reinstalling windows and wiping drive.: Hello. I have been struggling to figure out why my PC is bluescreening so much over the past week. Sometimes it happens when playing a game, sometimes soon after logging in, and sometimes on/just after the login screen.I've been getting all different kinds of error messages...
  5. Reinstall windows 11 on another drive and wipe everything

    in Windows 10 Gaming
    Reinstall windows 11 on another drive and wipe everything: Hello,I just got a new 2tb m.2 for my computer, and I want to reinstall windows on that drive and remove everything. I am trying to do this through installation media flash drive, however when I go to hit "Install Now", it says this PC can't run windows 11...but I'm running...
  6. Reinstall windows 11 on another drive and wipe everything

    in Windows 10 Software and Apps
    Reinstall windows 11 on another drive and wipe everything: Hello,I just got a new 2tb m.2 for my computer, and I want to reinstall windows on that drive and remove everything. I am trying to do this through installation media flash drive, however when I go to hit "Install Now", it says this PC can't run windows 11...but I'm running...
  7. Wiping hard drive and reinstalling windows

    in Windows 10 BSOD Crashes and Debugging
    Wiping hard drive and reinstalling windows: I am currently dealing with a black screen due to and update failure, nothing can fix it tired everything, next step is wipping the hard drive and reinstalling windows using another pc, is there a way I can save my activation on my windows and add it back to the hard drive...
  8. Cannot reinstall or boot to Windows

    in Windows 10 Ask Insider
    Cannot reinstall or boot to Windows: A few days ago, windows crashed because it became corrupted somehow, and I tried a million solutions to fix it but to no avail. I then reinstalled Windows, booted into it and restored from a backup. But when I shut it down, it became corrupted again. I reinstalled Windows...
  9. Wipe a dual boot machine and reinstall Win 10?

    in Windows 10 Installation and Upgrade
    Wipe a dual boot machine and reinstall Win 10?: I have an old machine that started out on Win 7. I updated/upgraded over the years and it now has two SSDs one with Win 7, the other with Win 10. I created the dual boot a long time ago from the Win 7 drive. I'm worried wiping will negate my Win 10 lisence since it was an...
  10. Boot drive wiping problem.

    in Windows 10 Installation and Upgrade
    Boot drive wiping problem.: Hey guys. Today I used the Windows 10 tool thing to use my 128GB USB stick as a boot drive for a clean install. All done with that now. Now I've formatted the USB stick and it says the USB stick has 31.9GB of space, and is called ESD-USB. How do I fix this? Thanks....