Windows 10: Can't get Acer Aspire E15 to boot from usb or external hdd

Hello,

My wife's Acer Aspire E15 (model N15Q1) bit the dust a few days ago. The screen was black, the mouse pointer is visible and I can move it, but can't actually do anything. Pressing the Windows key doesn't bring up the Start menu. Alt-Ctrl-Del brings up the screen to lock the computer, switch user, restart, etc. I tried switching to another user, but she's the only user defined on the laptop so that's all I could pick.

I've tried so many different things in the last 2 days that my head is spinning. Nothing I've found has helped yet.

I tried booting in Safe Mode, but it goes into diagnostic mode right away and then tries to "repair" whatever is preventing it from starting. No matter how many times I tried that, I still got the same result: Problems encountered at start up prevent the computer from starting Windows. Doesn't tell me what the actual problems are, though.

Since she didn't do any backups (I know, I know!) I want to try and do this without losing all her data. At first, I tried to create a bootable USB so I could boot from it and install a new version of Windows. I've used the diskpart command to clean, format and make the USB bootable. I've tried it with the USB formatted as NTSF and FAT32. Neither worked. I changed the boot order in the BIOS to make the "USB HDD", "USB FDD" and "USB CDROM" first in the order. Still no joy.

Then I tried the same thing with an external drive. Same results. Then I replaced the current HDD inside the laptop with a new HDD that was formatted to be bootable. When laptop tries to start it give me a "no bootable media found". That may not be the exact wording of the message.

ANYWAY, I'm stumped. Can anyone help please? I'm sure I haven't provided enough info so please ask if you need more info to help me.

Thanks in advance for any help.

PS - The laptop has Windows 10 on it, but I don't know what version.

:)

 

Boot from external USB HDD

Hello!

Any laptop should be able to Be booted from an external HDD.

You can check this back accessing your BIOS and then checking if the BIOS gives you an option to boot from USB.

If that option is listed, then you're good to go!

 

Updating to Windows 10 on Acer Aspire E15 error 8024402C

Just bought a brand new Acer Aspire E15, and when I go to update to Windows 10, the updates get so far & then tell me I "can't install 1 update" error code 8024402C.

Please help. I hate Windows 8.

 

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Removed the DVD optical drive and replaced it with it.
Windows recognizes the SSD so I was able to clone my systempartition to the SSD drive.
Now when i rebooted my laptop and went into BIOS to change boot-order, my SSD does not show up ?? I only see Windows Boot Manager and my old HDD.

How to make sure my laptop boots from the new SSD?