Windows 10: Windows 10 Frozen at spinning dots and windows icon - USB and HDD

Hi All,


First time here but I have been unable to solve this issue today and I can not find any info on google. MY sister was unable to boot her laptop (Dell P55F) today. The bot process gets to the large blue windows 10 icon and there are usually spinning dots below it. In this case the dots spin for about 1/4 of a second, then become frozen in place and nothing happens for many hours after that if the computer is left on. Here are all the things I tried:

-switching bios options. Secure boot on/off, legacy and uefi, processor features disabled, other hardware disabled, etc.
-memtest86 - passed
-all dell diagnostics - passed
-swapped in different RAM - no difference
-booting to USB created using windows media creation tool - also gets to the same place (spinning dots) and freezes. Tried this after removing hard drive and still does not boot. I tried three times with 3 different USB flash drives.
-booting to Linux/Ubuntu USB, works successfully, able to open and browse hard drive and all files.

The part about booting into USB windows not working, but also all of the hardware tests I can think of passing, is really baffling to me! Does anyone else have any other idea I have not thought of?

Appreciate you reading!
Thanks

:)

 

Windows 10 is stuck at loading screen

I put Windows 10 on a 16GB USB drive using the media creation tool and when I boot my PC with the USB drive in it it stays on with the windows logo and one dot where the spinning dots should be

This is a pc that i built myself

Specs

Intel Pentium g4560 3.50ghz

DDR4 micron 4gb

Asrock b250m pro4

Gtx1050 superclocked

500w psu

500gb HDD

 

Windows 10 install stuck

During my install I seem to be stuck after a reboot on the Windows Logo and spinning dots - but its frozen with only 2 dots. After a shutdown restart it does the same thing.. Any ideas?

 

Is it possible to run Windows in Safe Mode?

 

F8 during startup does not present any options and I cant boot into any windows 10 so far, so how may I try to access safe mode?

 

Maybe this guide will help you enter Safe Mode.

Boot into Safe Mode on Windows 10 - Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials

 

Hi TrustMe,

The only option in that list without being able to boot into win10 is the "powering off and on to get the advanced option screen" (option 6 here Boot to Advanced Startup Options in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials ) I was never able to bring up that screen.

Besides this, I have only ever tried USBs created with the media creation tool (installation USB) not recovery USB, but I do not have another windows 10 to create recovery USB, is it possible to download it somewhere?

Thanks!

 

You can get into Advanced Startup Optiions with your media creation USB drive. Just use option 5 in the guide you linked.

Boot from your Win 10 installation USB flash drive
Click next on the first screen to appear
On the bottom left of the next screen, click Repair your Computer
Click on Troubleshoot
Click on Advanced Options.

 

Hi TrustMe,

As I mentioned in my first post, I can not boot with the Media creation drive. I get to the same screen (Large Blue windows 10 logo with rotating dots) and it freezes the same way. I am not able to have any options before this freeze, unless you know of some special keys I can press to access extra options.

Thank you

 

Hi. Any progress on this?

 

Hi simrick,

I have received no further suggestions, and have thus not been able to make any additional progress.

Thank you

 

Okay, maybe we can get something working here....

How do you get to the one-time boot menu? F12?
And to the BIOS settings? F2?

Do you have an empty spare flash drive we can use?

 

Hi simrick,

You are correct for both statements. Any of the three previous USBs I have used with the media creation tool are available.

Thanks

 

Go into the BIOS and set everything back to Dell defaults.

Download Kyhi's custom rescue media ISO on another machine.
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - - Windows 10 Forums

Download RUFUS to create the flash drive.
Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way
Open RUFUS, select your flash drive in the first line, under Device, make sure it says MBR partition for BIOS and UEFI, click on the disk icon to select Kyhi's ISO. Make sure the three boxes are checked to the left of that. Click Start and let it create the custom media on the flash drive.




I realize you should just be able to mount the ISO and copy the files over to a flash drive, but when someone is having difficulty getting a system to boot to a flash drive, I always turn to RUFUS. Since you are able to boot to Linux, this may do the trick.

If you are successful, you will boot into a mini-windows environment with a bunch of programs.
HDTune will check the health of the hard drive. Speccy will also do that.
CHKDSK can be run from File Manager.
Malwarebytes can be run to make sure there is nothing "lurking" on the drive.

If you can't boot with the BIOS settings at default, try turning off Fast Boot, change UEFI to Legacy, save settings and try that.

Let us know how it goes.

 

Before trying all that, remove custom devices. I had same problem, but I was using a custom mouse & it turns out after the latest windows 10 update my mouse wasn't finished updating drivers...lots of troubleshooting later I unplugged everything but standard keyboard & mouse and after reboot, success!