"Missing" Operating System - Windows 10, Harddrive problem, or Other issue?

[nickpbassill]

Hi All,
I have a pretty confusing problem, and I'm not sure if it's a windows 10 issue (maybe?), a hard drive issue (maybe most likely?), a power supply issue (also quite possible?), or another problem. Any advice this community could offer would be extremely appreciated! (Apologies in advance for the length explanation!)

I have the Intel build suggested by jaraldo downthread here: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2180061/building-question-case-reuse-part-suggestions.html#xtor=EPR-8809 (I'm muadddib - I appear to be unable to access my older account right now for some reason).

Regardless, I woke up this morning to this screen: http://operations.nysmesonet.org/~nbassill/crash/20180124_104255.jpg , which was highly confusing, since I only have Windows 10, but regardless, I thought "oh, there must have been an update overnight, and it got confused since I have an external hard drive plugged in, so I'll unplug it and retry." However, this didn't solve the problem (I kept getting this screen) so I just turned off my computer.

After powering it on again, it only half turned on, powered off, then turned itself on again but froze (nothing on the screen). Trying a few more times, I got the same result. At this point I said to myself, "Aha! It must be a power supply issue, since the last time I had a power supply problem this is what it looked like." After leaving it for a few minutes unpowered, I tried again, only to get the screen mentioned above. Since I had two extra internal hard drives, I figured it couldn't hurt to try disconnecting them and rebooting. Once I did this it rebooted (hooray!) and I successfully got to my desktop, only for it to freeze about a minute later: http://operations.nysmesonet.org/~nbassill/crash/20180124_105217.jpg (I could move the cursor, but nothing else would happen.) About a minute passed, and I got this screen: http://operations.nysmesonet.org/~nbassill/crash/20180124_105559.jpg . It appeared to be stuck at 0% for awhile, and I had to get to work, so I left it.

I came back home to this screen: http://operations.nysmesonet.org/~nbassill/crash/20180124_183938.jpg . I tried putting in my old windows 8.1 disk, and while it would read it, I couldn't do any repairs. If I tried to recover/refresh/repair/whatever, I'd get a screen like this: http://operations.nysmesonet.org/~nbassill/crash/20180124_221828.jpg .... but obviously I can't unlock it.

The hard drive *feels* like it's running normally to the touch, and I don't hear any really obvious clicks or anything, so I'm quite confused. I don't think there were any windows updates last night, but I could be wrong. The reluctance to power on at times tells me there's probably (?) a problem with the power supply, but the inability to recognize windows when it does power on suggests a hard drive and/or OS issue to me, but I'm not an expert.

Since I would lose a not-insignificant amount of data on that hard drive, I'd *really* like to think it's not that issue, although I am prepared for the worst. It seems like buying a new power supply and trying that first is the easiest/cheapest option, but I'd love it if anyone here could provide a more concrete course of action! In the meantime, I throw myself at the mercy of this community of experts

 

[Colif]

I haven't sen a locked drive for a while, see if some of these help: https://neosmart.net/wiki/the-drive-where-windows-is-installed-is-locked/ - I have spelled out a few of these below.

on another PC, download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB - this is just a boot drive

change boot order so USB is first, hdd second
boot from installer
on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt
follow this: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-rebuild-the-bcd-in-windows-2624508

If you can't get win 10 to boot normally, try this to recover info:

I inserted my windows installation disk and opened the command prompt. I typed notepad in which obviously opened the notepad. From there I went to file > open which opened a file explorer. I plugged an external hard drive into my USB port, and I searched for all of my most irreplaceable files and copied them onto the external drive, then once I finished, I plugged my drive into my Mac and confirmed that all the files are all there.

 

[nickpbassill]

Thanks!
For what it's worth, before I went to bed last night (I live in NY) I tried these steps: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3103656/-an-operating-system-wasn-t-found-error-when-booting-windows - but sadly, "diskpart" yielded no results so it didn't go far. I'm far from an expert, but that makes me wonder - is it showing no disk because it's locked, or is it saying the disk is locked (when trying to do the repair/refresh), because it can't see a disk?

I'll work on trying the steps you outline when I get back home. For what it's worth, I have the power supply mentioned here: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2382693/bad-psu-kill-hard-drive.html , although that may be anecdotal.

Regardless of whether or not this hard drive is salvageable, given the weird power-up issues (only half powering on, powering off, then re-powering on), I think I should get a new power supply and additional hard drive. Thanks again for your suggestions!

 

[nickpbassill]

As a follow-up, the drive doesn't seem recognizable - either taking the steps you describe, or by putting it in an enclosure to read by another computer. Thank you for your assistance though!

 

[Colif]

I think that if it saw no hdd, it wouldn't be reporting it was locked. PC has another error for that situation.'

Drive sounds a little wrong if you can't find it in windows or an enclosure. You could boot from a Ubuntu live USB and see if it finds hdd.

 

[nickpbassill]

I was able to plug it into a linux machine, and although it was able to "see" it was there, it couldn't read anything. Taking it to get some preliminary input from a local computer store, I was told it was likely the read head + disk degradation. I have no idea if that's true, but after describing the "symptoms" to a few data recovery places, they seemed to think that was probably the case as well.

Since I use the drive almost exclusively for torrenting music, this seems plausible. Thank you for your assistance though!