Startup Troubleshooting – Get Your Windows Computer to Boot

Help, your computer will not boot so you tried system recovery options, but no operating system was available and you can’t figure out what to do next. Whether it is a laptop or desktop computer, running Microsoft Windows, you can try selecting “Safe Mode” or “Last Known Good Configuration” after going into Windows safe mode by pressing your F8 key. You can check in your BIOS to make sure your hard drive is listed and detected by that computer, if none of those safe mode options work.

If you are unable to get into safe mode or a command prompt and if a hard drive is not listed in that BIOS I would try checking physical cables attaching that hard drive to a motherboard. It sounds like your BIOS isn’t detecting your hard drive or perhaps if you have multiple hard drives they are in a wrong boot order. To get into your BIOS you can try an F2 or possibly a “delete” key.

Startup Troubleshooting

It depends on what make of computer you have to get into a BIOS. If your computer is a laptop I suggest you try to check a BIOS settings and reseat that hard drive. If your computer is a desktop I recommend checking your BIOS settings and reseating hard drive cables.

You can also take that hard drive out of that computer and configure it as a slave hard drive on another computer. Running Windows chkdsk on that hard drive just might fix it. I have been able to get Windows to boot normally after just reseating a hard drive and or cables as well as running chkdsk numerous times.