Had a problem with missing dll files. I got help on this forum for it and after 2 days of the damn thing scanning, it turned off and now it won't boot up. I bought it second hand and dfon't have a windows disk. My question is can I use another laptop window's disk to reinstall or do I have to have one for my brand of laptop?

zizzy41 - 2021-04-08 09:56:00

have you checked the hard drive? these sort of problems just scream bad hard drive to me... being non bootable you will need to take it out and slave to another pc.

use HDSentinel or similar...
https://www.hdsentinel.com/download.php

if you familiar with dos and boot discs etc you could try the dos version otherwise use standard version on another windows machine

Edited by king1 at 10:05 am, Thu 8 Apr

king1 - 2021-04-08 10:03:00

I'll give thaqt a try. It was running the chkdsk scan then just stopped and now won't boot. Thanks for that

zizzy41 - 2021-04-08 10:17:00

to answer the question it will be hit and miss... it *may* work but you will possibly have trouble with activating windows and needing to manually install drivers. Better chance of success if discs come from same brand and preferably model. They can usually be downloaded online as well if required.

king1 - 2021-04-08 10:19:00

zizzy41 wrote:

I'll give thaqt a try. It was running the chkdsk scan then just stopped and now won't boot. Thanks for that

were you seeing any messages/errors while it was running? similar to these...
https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/getfile/40209/

all bad news if so...

Edited by king1 at 10:23 am, Thu 8 Apr

king1 - 2021-04-08 10:20:00

king1 wrote:

were you seeing any messages/errors while it was running? similar to these...
https://social.microsoft.com/Forums/getfile/40209/

all bad news if so...

no, didn't see anything like that. This is what it says when I start up 'the boot configuration data for your pc is missing or contains errors'

zizzy41 - 2021-04-08 10:33:00

What windows version? if its 10 you can download and make a boot disk from here to access recovery tools... then run the startup repair, which should fix it... while in there you can use the command prompt to run another chkdsk
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Edited by king1 at 11:04 am, Thu 8 Apr

king1 - 2021-04-08 11:03:00

yes, its windows 10. I'll have to head out and get a USB stick to download it on to. Thankyou so much for your help. I'll give this a go and if it doesn't work, I may just have to get a new lappy lol

zizzy41 - 2021-04-08 11:09:00

Do this:
Press the power button to start.
Allow it 10 seconds or so
Press and hold power button to shut it off -(this interrupting the startup).
Repeat this 3 times.
This should on the 3rd or 4th time force the system into the advanced startup options process. From there you can run automatic repair and many other functions.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/advanced-startup

-options-including-safe-mode-b-
90e7808-80b5-a291-d4b8-1a1af60-

2b617

nice_lady - 2021-04-08 11:19:00

Could try that but I suspect any kind of boot to windows will need the BCD to be correct

king1 - 2021-04-08 11:53:00

Doesn't actually boot windows at that point.

nice_lady - 2021-04-08 12:41:00

nice_lady wrote:

Doesn't actually boot windows at that point.

any kind of boot to any mode of windows then... [will need the BCD to be correct]

Edited by king1 at 1:25 pm, Thu 8 Apr

king1 - 2021-04-08 13:22:00

zizzy41 wrote:

I'll have to head out and get a USB stick

make sure it is 8gb or larger.

muppet_slayer - 2021-04-08 14:32:00