Blinking Underscore on Boot

[remytepvann]

Hey guys, I’m not sure where to post this so pleasd bare with me!

Yesterday as I was using my laptop, I noticed little freezes and my laptop (It’s an ASUS FX503VM, bought 10 months ago) being really slower than usual. Few minutes later, it completely froze and after I waited a while, i was forced to hard reset.

When booting, after the ASUS logo appeared, the screen was stuck on a black screen with the blinking underscore.
I then restarted the computer again to access the BIOS and see what was up, was it the HDD?
In the BIOS everything seemed normal, the HDD was recognized and the computer booted on it.

Maybe it’s windows.
So I decided to use a bootable USB stick to repair Windows, the problem is that the USB stick wasn’t recognized at first but then it booted on it.
I accessed the Windows repair tool but It couldn’t find the windows partition!
I tried to go on the reinstall Windows menu but the tool can’t find the HDD to install it on.

I rebooted the computer and went in the BIOS and my USB stick was recognized but the HDD wasn’t anymore!

Since then, I’ve been trying back and forth with and without the USB stick and it seems that my computer will only recognize either the HDD or the USB stick but not both at the same time!!

I’m kind of really annoyed because the problem appeared all of a sudden while needing the use of the laptop..
And if possible I would like to avoid reinstalling Windows and loosing my data !

Has anybody had this problem before or can provide a solution please?

Thanks it would be much appreciated!!

 

[karenjoly]

Try a restore. Does the computer support Alt + F10 ?

If so, you might be able to restore to factory defaults by pressing Alt + F10 when the computer is booting up and elect Troubleshoot.

Click Reset your PC. This process will erase all data on the your system. Choose the Refresh your PC option if you want to restore your system and retain your data.

Last thing is to ensure the drive connections are secure.