Boot up flashing screen - can't get to login.

[kevakazi]

When I started my pc yesterday, it began booting as normal then before you get onto the login screen the screen began to flash black then back to the blue loading screen with a quarter of the spinning loading circle and doesn't load any further. I've tried everything from restores to recoveries and nothing is working. I believe its software side because when I use a windows 10 usb to test if a fresh install is possible the screen works fine.

This is a bit of a two fold question. Anyone heard of this windows 10 issue? Secondly is there any way to recover files off my hard drive as windows won't boot?

Sorry for layout, writing this on my phone.

 

[LukeFatwalker]

This issue isn't too common, but it's definitely a possibility. Essentially there's a corruption with your Pre-OS environment. So your MBR and Boot Manager which are typically reserved for launching your machine into the OS has an issue that prevents the OS from being launched.

Your options are two:

1) Run Startup Repair. Sometimes you can run Startup Repair and it will repair the damaged components. There's no guarantee it'll work, but this route won't cause a loss in data, so I'd recommend running it first.

2) Reformat the machine. If Startup Repair can't repair the damaged components, only other option is to reformat. This will definitely fix it but you'll lose your data. So be careful before doing it, and backup whatever you can before you do it.

Unfortunately there's not much else that can be done about a corrupted boot loader. I've had it happen a few times, and I usually reimage but still a pain. Definitely recommend that you back up your system, even a cheap disk imager like Drive Cloner works. You could always try a snapshot tool like Rollback Rx as well. Sometimes it helps adding that extra option when available.

 

[kevakazi]

Thank you for the reply. It looks as though I'm going to have to reformat. I just hoped there was a way of recovering my files. Its my own fault for not backing them up recently.