Windows 10: I Think I Bricked My Laptop, It Won't Boot Windows

My laptop has been like this for months. It's a Toshiba Satellite C850 running Windows 10 and it won't boot Windows. It has been in this state for months. Windows 8 was pre-installed on it so I have no installation disc and it runs Windows 10. I've downloaded Windows 10 and burned the .ISO on multiple discs to try and boot from them but no luck. There was one time the disc loaded and while it was restoring the laptop, the battery died. *Eek

I think I am out of options. I want to try and fix it myself instead of bringing it to a repair shop. Any ideas would be a life saver. Thanks very much!

:)

 

I think i bricked my Laptop/Windows 10

Hi Mr. Arun,

Thank you very much for the guidelines. Will surely execute these and hopefully, fix things up. High five!

Regards,

Harold

 

I think i bricked my Laptop/Windows 10

Hi Harold,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

I understand your concern and will assist you to resolve this issue.

I suggest you to follow the steps below and check if it helps.

Booting to Recovery Environment with Windows 10 installation media.

This is an alternate way to boot the PC and run recovery tools when something goes wrong with the Operating system.

Please follow the steps given below. Insert the Windows 10 installation DVD in the DVD ROM and restart your computer.

a) After you boot your computer using Windows DVD or System Repair Disc, a black screen appears with gray text "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD". Press any key.

b)Select the correct time and Keyboard type.

c) Click Repair your computer
in the lower left corner.

d) Select Troubleshoot
from Choose an option screen.

e) Click advanced options
in Troubleshoot screen.

f) Click Automatic Repair
from Advanced Options screen.

g) Windows will then look for problems on hard drive(s) and verify that all required files are intact.

To download the windows 10 ISO refer the link below

Download Windows 10

Hope this information was helpful and do let us know if you need further assistance. We will be glad to assist

 

Try booting from a Windows 10 or Windows 8 installation DVD with the laptop plugged in so the battery doesn't die during installation.

Also make sure your Windows installation disc has files and folders for Windows installation on it, and not just an ISO file copied over. If you see a single file ending with .ISO then you just copied the file over. You should see a set of files and folders on the disc like this:

 

That's exactly what the disc looks like, but whenever I boot from the disc the laptop just shows a black screen.

 

Have you tried it with Kyhi's recovery disc?

Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

If the computer will boot from Kyhi's recovery disc, you can remove the recovery DVD from the drive, insert the Windows installation DVD and run setup from it. Or you can just copy the Windows 10 ISO file to a USB drive, mount the ISO file and run setup.exe from the mounted ISO file (that's how I do my installs).

You can use this tool to download a Windows 8 ISO file to make a Windows 8 installation DVD with:
Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool

 

@CarefulNow ... Can you boot to the BIOS? With the lappy completely powered off, and charger plugged in, hold the SHIFT key down and power on. Holding down the shift key will make it pause at the boot screen long enough for you to press F12. Let go of the SHIFT key and rapidly press F12 to see if you can boot to BIOS. The configuration may not be set up to look for the DVD first. If you can get to BIOS, verify that DVD is first in the sequence. When booting from DVD you may get a "Press any key to boot from CD" message, which you have to do. Otherwise, it will try the HDD. If the HDD is corrupt, you may get the black screen you mentioned.

 

No I haven't! It's downloading now, I'll update when I've tried it out.

 

Yes I can access the BIOS. I've gotten to the boot screen and booted from the DVD/CD drive but that's where I get the black screen also. I've converted the ISO to USB and that didn't work either.

 

I'm assuming (hate that word) that your last attempt was from the new Windows 8 that Navy suggested. You said "it's downloading now". What's your other machine? The one you're using to download and post with? Both curiosity questions.

When you boot, do you get any display of anything? If you instantly get a blank black screen no matter what you try to boot from, it's sounding like the BIOS got fried or you have a hardware issue. I really don't know what to tell you at this point. If all attempts to boot from everything consistently fail....I don't know.

Hopefully someone with more expertise in the hardware and/or BIOS area can give some input. The fact the battery died while you were running doesn't sound good to me.

Sorry.

 

Must be something about the Toshiba Satellite C850, a bit different problem over at Error 0x80070570 when installing any 64Bit version of Windows - Windows 10 Forums

 

Just a shot in the dark. I was having trouble installing w10 from a working dvd on an old Phenom machine but it installed ok from an usb created with Rufus. You could give this a shot.

 

Hi there

Try any Live Linux distribution -- Linux Mint is probably the most "Windows Like". Convert ISO to bootable USB via RUFUS if the download is in ISO format. Now just see if it boots. If it does then your Laptop is basically OK -- could be a dubious HDD or whatever.

If you feel uncomfortable with Linux try downloading the bootable version of GPARTED and boot it up. If it boots it will show you if the HDD is inoperative / has errors etc. (Again use RUFUS to convert ISO to bootable USB).

If your PC has a TOTALLY DEAD battery or a defective one --REMOVE IT and work from the Mains. Sometimes a defective battery will render the PC inoperative as the BIOS will go through all sorts of hardware checks and a defective battery can cause a Hard Wait state in the BIOS (i.e either Blank screen or simply a Freeze). Even if the BIOS will let you boot Windows itself may fail on similar hardware checks as it's initialising so IMO good idea to totally remove the battery.

Cheers
jimbo

 

@CarefulNow ... That suggestion by @jimbo45 sounds like an excellent first step. A dead battery may be causing it to go into an endless initialization loop. Seems to be an easy try without having to download anything else. If you don't have the manual for your lappy, here is the link. Chapter 4, page 29 shows how to remove battery.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...,d.cWw&cad=rjt

 

Hey everyone. Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm gonna try and answer everyone's questions.

I'm using my old Lenovo laptop and my iPhone to post here (using the old laptop to download). When I boot the Toshiba laptop it always end with a black screen. I went into the BIOS and changed the Boot Type from UEFI to CSM. CSM gives me what appears to look like a full screen command prompt box except it's not. I can't type anything into it, it only shows a blinking underscore "_" on the top-left corner of the screen. UEFI Boot displays the Toshiba logo, displays 'Preparing Automatic Repair' and then goes black again. Except this time it gave me a BSOD with the error saying "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME". Hopefully this will help to fix this problem.

@NavyLCDR I downloaded Kyhi's recovery disc but unfortunately that didn't load up anything, so I used 'Rufus' as suggested by @eLPuSHeR but nothing showed up either. There is no 'setup.exe' file in the .ISO, is there supposed to be one? If there is I'll redownload it.

I did all of this with the laptop's battery removed as suggested by @jimbo45. I'm going to download Linux now and try it out. I'll update this thread again after using it.

And, here's a tip: use "My understanding was..." instead of "I assumed..."