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My son's Acer E5-551-T1PJ Windows 10 laptop crashed while playing Steam yesterday. Screen went black while gaming, rebooted, then immediately "No Bootable Device".

crash error

There's nothing important on it so now I just need to Reset Windows 10.


What I've tried...

  • Tried resetting from boot screen repeatedly (both options). Each time got to 80% then failed and reverted.

    Reset Running Reset Failed

  • Login screen tells me there's no saved restore points (even though there should be.)

  • If/when it gets as far as letting me login, Explorer.exe crashes immediately:

    Explorer Crash

  • There's no taskbar or start menu but hitting CTRLALTDEL and Task Manager slowly loads, and from there I can manage to get an elevated command prompt.

  • Task Manager says Disk Usage is at 100%, but only 0.3 MB/s is listed:
    Task Manager and EXPLORER.EXE error
    Task Manager (sorted by Disk Usage) Task Manager (sorted by Memory Usage)
    (Click to Englarge)


Memory Tests

I was finally able to run a Windows memory test (MdSched.exe at the command prompt) and a Linux memory test (from the GRUB screen)...

  • No memory problems found.

CHKDSK /F

  • Result: Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50
    CHKDSK C: /F
    (Click to Englarge)

Apparently this error means:

...there are corruptions or bad sectors in Windows partition Run chkdsk c: /r /f /v to repair system partition.

(I began a CHKDSK /R before I found that, but looking at the docs I'm not convinced the extra switches will make a difference.)


CHKDSK /R

CHKDSK C: /R Bad Clusters Repaired (Click to Englarge)
CHKDSK C: /R

After about 8 hours it finished, and had found & repaired a few dozen bad clusters. I ran it again to confirm there was no problem.

...but it still won't reset. It gets partway done and then "has a problem" and reverts...

Windows Reset keeps failing


sfc /scannow

Finished Verification 100%, and then:

Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation


CHKDSK /R /F /X again

Attempt #3 powered itself off halfway through.
Attempt #4 is about 4 hours in:

chkdsk4


SFC /scannow

Verification 100% complete.
Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.

sfc


  • Any guesses at the diagnosis? Memory vs Disk?

  • Is there anything else I can try using only the command prompt, recovery menu, or Linux?

  • Will creating a recovery drive in a USB thumb drive have any more chance of working than already the failed Reset attempts?

...any other suggestions to save this poor single dad a few hundred bucks at the repair shop?!

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    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Mokubai
    Mar 18, 2018 at 18:40
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    Seems like a hard drive issue potentially like the drive is failing or something per no bootable device then the check disk errors and such. If you can reinstall Windows on another drive, that may not be a bad idea but if you're able to get an image of the existing drive and push it to another drive and then boot, maybe you can get some success but something to try if you have another drive to test. From an elevated command prompt if you can get into the Windows OS at times though, run SFC /SCANNOW but seems sporadic drive issue like hardware failure, etc. potentially. Mar 21, 2018 at 4:01
  • @pimp thanks for the info but you know file recovery isn't important right? Or do you mean just for the sake of getting it working again? No hopes of using Windows Reset? Also I do have an external USB drive... (i assume that works?) I will try SFC as soon as the current operation is done -- i figured i'm run CHKDSK again... and it's finding more bad clusters :(
    – ashleedawg
    Mar 21, 2018 at 4:11
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    No just the reset but perhaps just the HD is dying though and nothing else with the laptop so if you can unscrew just that and slide it out of the laptop, take it to Walmart, BestBuy, or some electronic type store in your area, you may find a HD that'll suffice which is cost effective to replace. With all those I/O type issues, the file system errors, and all other things you've disclosed, it seems perhaps at least the hard drive is dying so to replace that, you wouldn't need to take entire laptop enclosure apart to get it out and replace. Just keep working it!! Mar 21, 2018 at 16:22
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    I'm surprised you'd need to take apart the keyboard or its ribbon to replace the hard drive.... I suggest YouTube.com search for "<PC Model> Disassembly" and then watch thru some videos: youtube.com/watch?v=qVhwmScVfLo&vl=en and youtube.com/watch?v=Ct99AKtSm8g I assume this won't help much but just in case: notebookcheck.net/… Mar 27, 2018 at 2:30

1 Answer 1

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UPDATE (Fixed)

As there are no answers for me to accept I figure I'll add my solution here.

After running CHKDSK /R /F /X repeatedly (felt like a million times, at 4 to 6 hours each time) there were eventually no more bad sectors found.

I formatted the drive with the startup options: img

...then (on another machine) downloaded the Windows Installation Media and saved it to a thumb drive.

I changed the boot order to boot from USB, where it installed Windows, and we haven't had a problem since.

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  • Update: un-fixed :-(
    – ashleedawg
    Dec 13, 2019 at 9:39
  • sigh .... FML
    – ashleedawg
    Jan 10, 2023 at 7:22

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