Windows 10: My PC Win10 won't post up and gives no beeps -how to find the culprit

OK, Manish, understood now. Will try that.

 

Kbird
AT Power up, the cpu fan goes, the chassis fan goes, led light,.

No overclocking or anything.

If the tests using Mini Partition failed to locate the mbr and partitions Is it possible to use some king of utility to insert or create and MBR so that I can recover my File System Structure and Data files without having to rename, what actually would be thousands of files, from the generic names given to the recovered ones by the Data Recovery software? That would be sooo much easier!

I have a one week old Acronis System image of both my System partition and my Programs partition so I will be able to force that onto a HD.

MY most recent Data backup is 3 months old. Shame on me! Going to switch from ancient practice of backing up my data to DVD's to the many extra HDs and enclosures I own.

 

So it powers up but won't post ?

or it tries to powerup and the PS turns off immediately? (self protection)

Minitool can rebuild the MBR , but it sounds like it can't see any partitions to do so... try your HDD makers own utilities too via the laptop.

 

Kbird
The power comes on and stays on but no post uefi or whatever that screen is called, nothing displayed on monitor.
I'll see if Seagate has any tools available,
thanks

 

It's called The Bios , (UEFI or Legacy) , sometimes you see the Bios Post info if the Bios post screen is disabled at boot.

Have you swapped out the graphics card for another or used the onboard GFX if their is one? that would eliminate the GFX card as the issue

next in line would be the CPU , it is unlikely you have spare to test with but , you could pull the heatsink/fan and see if you can see anything burnt out visually (diode/resistor) perhaps ask local store if they would test CPU for you , might mean you have to buy new from them? maybe time for an upgrade anyway? I have seen this before with dead CPU's where board will power on but get no further.

KB

 

Major update: I decided to put data recovery on hold ($115 cost for upgraded version w more than 1gb) and decided to experiment by simply placing my new HDD into the machine and see what happened.

It showed the Asrock eufi screen so I tried to use acronic boot disk but it could find the two copies of its backup on the drive and showed the drives to be only 35 gb each and all kinds of unallotted space. So I used a boot utility to recreate the partitions in an appropriate size and tried to tried to install win10 from a disk and it rejected based on the fact that it was an mbr disk rather than a gpt disk.

So I converted it to GPT created partitions formatted them and started win10 installation disk again. Rejection because it IS a GPT disk! Man, this is exhausting! Dont know where to go from here.

 

Update 2:

OK I took an hour off and came back did some more research and decided to take the HD out of the PC and attached it to my laptop and use command line to 'clean the disk and make it gpt / Then I went back to Windows Disk Management console adn formatted and created 3 NTFS partitions.


I placed in back inside the PC and failed again when I tried to install win10 from disk again. Now I GET NEW ERROR MESSAGE which says:


"windows can not be installed on this disk space. Windows cannot be installed to a partition formatted as Ntfs.
windows can not be installed on this disk space. The partition is of an unrecognized type.
windows can not be installed on this disk. This computers hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu."

What an endless runaround this has been.

 

It looks like your motherboard is fine since you can boot to the BIOS. I still suspect a faulty device connected to the PC may have caused the original problem. It would be wise to track down the culprit.

Have you now wiped your hard drive? If so, I would create a partition on it and use chkdsk <drivename> /f with the disk connected to your laptop. See Drive Error Checking in Windows 10

If you think the disk is healthy, then you could restore the Acronis backup you have (but is it Windows 10)? However, you might be better off doing a new clean install of Windows 10 on the disc, reinstall your programs and recover your data from back up. Windows 10 should automatically activate on your PC provided you previously had an activated Windows 10 PC. I recommend downloading the ISO file and doing a clean install from that. Do Step 3 in Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First

 

Kbird,
I assume that you missed two recent updates I made where I describe getting the Mb to post up and load various cds and DVD utilities and Windows installation disk-and failed yet failed to install.

But to answer your question, it it's an onboard graphics chip, not a card.

Does your comments about the CPU still pertain considering my recent updates about getting installation disks to run?

Thanks,

 

Yep was very late , but I admit this is weird as from your previous information ( do we know the whole story ? *Smile ) , it would not post , and inserting a new HD should not of changed that , even if the old HD was dead it will usually at least post and give you an error message about no Boot disk or something similar. Newer MBs have an LED for the Bootdisk too if the MB can't find it especially in UEFI Bios's.

You don't need to do anything to a new HDD when install Windows 10 , it will do all the appropriate Disk partitioning as needed for UEFI Bios and GPT or MBR etc , and it best to let it do it from a Clean unallocated disk , I am not sure with AU ISO Install disk but in the past Win10 wouldn't alter the partitions if it though you were upgrading , though it may add a Recovery partition then too (450mb) . I would do a Clean install from an initialized disk with no partitions and let win10 set itself up as needed and once installed recover your Data and files by mounting the Acronis Images and restoring Files as needed.

you may need to check your MB manual for info on enabling/disabling CSM or if you are doing a pure UEFI boot , in pure UEFI the disk needs to be GPT but with CSM enabled with the right options a Bois/MBR boot should work fine, it will use a GPT disk this was too, i would use GPT if possible.

I am out most of the Day , so hopefully others can help if needed.

 

If you are not worried about the data loss while installing OS.,
1. Choose repair your computer after booting from CD or Press Shift + F9 on disk selection (where to install windows).
2. Type following commands in cmd
>diskpart
>list disk
>Select disk (number) Here is number of your selected disk.. on which you want to install windows
>Clean all

Now you can install windows on the disk

 

To Kbird, Mannish and Steve:

Update#3
I understand that it should have posted up even without a hard drive and I can't explain that. But it does leave me suspicious about the motherboard.

So I remounted the new hd on the laptop and copied test files to and from it and it is in good shape.
I reseated the RAM. I switched to a alternate data cable going into the hard drive but I couldn't see where it connects to the motherboard so I couldn't move it to a different socket, if such a thing is possible.

So I can't acount for how putting a hd in place gave me access to the uefi

But following the advice that window 10 prefers to install on a raw unallocated I wiped it clean.
I attempted to install Windows 10 onto it and for the first time I didn't get usual error messages, so I thought I was home free. Then I got an error message claiming that Windows didn't have sufficient files to complete the install.

So I tried again and this time added what I thought was the proper license key and it failed to accept it. So I clicked on I do not have the key. By the way this time I connected the ethernet to the machine and so maybe it was able to acquire some needed files from the Internet, although that hasn't happened before I have installed Windows on a half-dozen machines.

Anyway, after 2 1/2 days I finally got Windows 10 installed onto a hard drive. Now I just have to mount my Acronis image onto the D Drive where it resided before this disaster and delete the Windows installation on the C Drive.

I hope I don't have any problems with that.

Time will tell if this is all stable or another fluke.

Thanks everyone and I'll post a follow-up - one way or another!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S. Here's the followup:
I mounted the Acronis image either over the old install or in the adjacent partition and now it boots to a black screen with the Windows icon but just stays like that
All my repair attempts have failed using Windows usb and DCD repair utilities, Acronic into Windows.

I got this message at one point “The drive where Windows is installed is locked”.

So I did a Command line thing:
Method one:
1.Place the Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 installation media inside the PC either a USB or a DVD.
2.Reboot the Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 device.
3.On the startup screen of windows you will be asked to boot from the DVD or USB stick and you should do so.
4.You will get to a Windows setup screen and you will need to left click or tap on the “Next” button.
5.In the next window you will need to left click or tap on the “Repair your computer” feature.
6.Now you should be in the “Advanced startup options” window.
7.Left click or tap on the “Advanced boot options” feature.
8.Left click or tap on the “Troubleshoot” feature.
9.Left click or tap on the “Advanced options” feature.
10.Left click or tap on the “Command prompt” option.
11.Now after you have the command prompt window in front of the screen you will need to write the following line: “chkdsk /f C:”
Note: If you’re Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 device is installed on another partition then the “C:” drive please copy the necessary drive in the command above.
12.Press the “Enter” button on the keyboard for the check to start.
13.After this operations is finished please reboot the Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 device and check to see if you get the same error message.

Method three:
1.Go to the “Troubleshoot” feature in Windows as you did in the first method.
2.Left click or tap on the “Advanced options” menu.
3.Left click or tap on the “Automatic repair” option.
4.Left click or tap on the “Command prompt” option.
5.In the command prompt window you will need to write: “bootrec /RebuildBcd”.
6.Press the “Enter” button on the keyboard.
7.Write in the command prompt: “ bootrec /fixMbr”
8.Press the “Enter” button on the keyboard.
9.Write in the command prompt: “bootrec /fixboot”
10.Press the “Enter” button on the keyboard.
11.Write in the command prompt: “Exit”
12.Press the “Enter” button on the keyboard.
13.Reboot your Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 operating system.
14.See if you still get the same error message after doing this method.

I haven't done a scannow line yet

Enough for me tonite!

 

Thanks for your messages and patience. I left a message for you all at the end of this thread.

 

Thanks for your messages and patience. I left a message for you all at the end of this thread.

 

Thanks for your messages and patience. I left a message for you all at the end of this thread.