Windows 10 Problems

[niknax71]

My sister has got problems with windows 10. The computer starts up ok but that is as far as it goes. Cannot access any programs, just get the busy sign all the time. I have gone into the troubleshooting mode by pressing shift and restart. Once the option comes up to restore computer i press that and get asked what keyboard layout i want. The problem is i have no cursor or up/down arrow options. Just cannot select anything. Has anybody got any idea what i can try before it has to go to the shop for repair. Thanks in advance

[hc4361]

Are you using a wired keyboard and mouse?

[Buenchico]

Let's get the obvious out of the way first:
Has she left a USB drive plugged in (or possibly a disk in the DVD drive)? Windows often won't boot properly (or at all) if the BIOS looks for a non-existent operating system on external media.

Secondly, as Hc4361 indicates, what type of keyboard is in use? If it's a wireless one it won't work if the relevant driver has loaded. You need to try a wired one.

Have she got a disk with Windows 10 on it (or a designated repair disk)? Or perhaps she's got a USB recovery drive. (That's the thing which the instruction which come with new computers always tell people to create but which most people seem to ignore!).

If she's got some form of recovery disk/drive she should be able to boot from there (possibly after changing the BIOS to look for it).

[niknax71]

Mouse and keyboard are wired. She said the problem started when she left it updating and the electric went,shutting down the laptop. She updated to windows 10 via the web and has not made a back up disc

[Guilbert53]

Does she get the Windows 10 logon screen and desktop?

There are some Windows 10 updates that take AGES to download and install (some are a complete replacement of Windows) so maybe leave it on over night (plugged in to the mains supply) to see if that fixes it.

If you really cant get it to Windows then you can download a copy of Windows 10 (legally) from here and then put the image on a USB stick (it wont fit on a single layer DVD) and then boot the laptop from the USB stick and reinstall Windows.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

See if you can then do an install where it reinstall Windows but does NOT overwrite your personal files.

Also you MAY be able to download a Windows 10 image from the company who built the laptop (HP, Lenovo etc) on their Support page. This will have all the drivers and programs that came with laptop already installed so may be better than a clean install of Windows 10.

[Old_Geezer]

Will it start up in safe mode ?

[niknax71]

Thanks for your answers. The laptop starts up up as normal with windows 10. Everything is ok until you try and access things on it, just shows the busy sign. It won't open anything, not even her own files

[Old_Geezer]

Maybe a reinstall is in order ?

(Does it have sufficient resources for Windows 10 ?)

[niknax71]

Downloaded windows 10 and booted from disc and used system restore that way. After restore had finished it said it encounted an error and has not changed your files or folders. I have yet still to try a complete new installation but i will probably lose the files and my sister has loads of photos on there. Have tried to put photos on disc but laptop won't let me open the dvd drive. Grrrr losing the will to live. lol