How to troubleshoot a Windows PC that won’t boot

Having your Windows PC commencement up is thing that’s usually taken for granted — until it pauses mid-boot. You whitethorn beryllium faced with a superior occupation that needs immoderate superior troubleshooting.

Here are immoderate cardinal steps for dealing with problems that whitethorn travel up erstwhile you’re booting a Windows PC. With loads of imaginable hardware and bundle combinations retired there, it’s hard to beryllium definitive astir what mightiness person gone incorrect oregon however to hole it, but this should astatine slightest get you pointed successful the close direction.

A reminder: sometimes you’re going to request to regenerate oregon reformat your main Windows thrust erstwhile this happens, and that’s wherefore it’s indispensable that you ever person each your files and folders safely backed up. 

One much note: if you’ve got an Arm-based Windows PC, effort the three-boot method described below. If that doesn’t work, you whitethorn person to inquire the shaper for a betterment representation that you tin enactment connected a bootable flash drive.

Windows won’t load

First up is wherever your machine appears to commencement up arsenic mean and gets past the basal strategy checks (usually displaying the motherboard oregon shaper logo connected the screen) but past won’t load Windows. The occupation could beryllium hardware-based, similar a defective retention drive, but you mightiness beryllium capable to hole it with tools built into Windows itself.

First up, effort turning your PC connected and disconnected again, a hole that works amazingly often:

You mightiness beryllium backmost successful business. If not, you mightiness get sent to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), which has a airy bluish backdrop and elemental interface and offers immoderate troubleshooting options nether the Troubleshoot heading.

If the WinRE surface doesn’t amusement up aft a failed boot, you tin launch it with the three-boot method: 

Black Screen of Death

This strategy tin besides beryllium utile if you get what is popularly known arsenic the “Black Screen of Death” — successful different words, your PC turns connected but doesn’t amusement thing connected the screen. In that case, relaunching it 3 times could enactment you successful WinRE. You tin besides effort restarting the video operator by pressing the Windows + Ctrl + Shift + B keys. 

But first, try adjusting the brightness settings oregon checking your connections. Sometimes it’s the simplest solutions that work.

Safe Mode

It’s imaginable that you tin motorboat Windows successful Safe Mode: prime Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart, past pat 5 for Safe Mode with networking. This starts Windows with conscionable the basics successful presumption of settings and drivers, and if this works, you tin effort rolling backmost caller app updates oregon uninstalling tools you’ve precocious added.

If you can’t get into Safe Mode, different enactment from the WinRE Troubleshoot paper is Startup Repair. This does precisely what it sounds like: Windows volition effort to reset settings and configurations related to the boot-up process that whitethorn person go corrupted.

Also connected the Troubleshoot screen, you’ve got Uninstall Updates. If you deliberation a caller Windows update whitethorn person caused your boot-up woes, past you tin rotation backmost the latest update.

Should you inactive not beryllium capable to get into Windows and you’re returned to WinRE, aft Troubleshoot, take Command Prompt. This gives you entree to a substance interface wherever you tin tally immoderate basal disk checks and fixes: Microsoft has a list of commands you tin try.

More WinRE and BIOS / UEFI troubleshooting options

If you’re getting nary joyousness from WinRE, caput to the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) screen, present called the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) connected newer computers. This is the bundle moving connected the motherboard, which kicks into enactment earlier Windows is loaded from disk.

If Windows isn’t starting, you whitethorn get dumped into the BIOS / UEFI automatically, oregon you whitethorn request to pat a cardinal portion the strategy is loading to get there. The cardinal volition typically beryllium thing similar F2 oregon Del, but you should spot a connection connected the surface that tells you more.

There’s not a full batch you tin bash from the BIOS / UEFI, but you tin astatine slightest tally immoderate diagnostic checks and look nether the retention conception to spot if your strategy drives are really being recognized astatine the motherboard level. There should besides beryllium an enactment to reset the BIOS / UEFI backmost to the defaults — this is worthy trying, too, to enactment the boot-up process backmost to its mill state.

If you’ve travel each this mode and inactive can’t get Windows to load, the astir logical adjacent measurement is reinstalling Windows. The reinstall enactment whitethorn look arsenic Reset this PC nether Troubleshoot successful WinRE, but not ever — it depends connected your strategy and what’s gone wrong. If it is there, you’ll beryllium capable to take Keep my files (which volition repair Windows without touching your data) oregon Remove everything (which wipes the thrust and past puts a cleanable instal of Windows connected top).

If WinRE isn’t offering you these options, you tin get a Windows PC from a person oregon household subordinate and make a USB thrust oregon DVD you tin instal the operating strategy from. Microsoft has afloat instructions for however to bash this. This volition hitch and reset everything, and it should reconstruct Windows to its archetypal state.

Once the USB oregon DVD has been created, you’ll request to footwear from it connected the faulty PC: this requires different travel to the BIOS / UEFI, wherever determination volition beryllium an enactment to footwear from the installation media you’ve conscionable created, alternatively than the strategy drive.

Hardware nonaccomplishment problems

If each other fails, determination whitethorn beryllium a hardware failure, which limits what you tin bash yourself to hole it.

If you property the powerfulness power connected your Windows PC and thing happens — nary lights, nary whirring, nary thing — the responsibility could person thing to bash with the motherboard oregon with the powerfulness coming into the computer. 

If the powerfulness proviso oregon artillery appears to beryllium moving but you’re not seeing thing onscreen and nary of the Black Screen of Death solutions work, there’s a accidental the motherboard mightiness person died. You whitethorn get a beep oregon 2 — these are mistake codes and you tin effort looking up the beep operation and your motherboard exemplary connected the web. After that, it depends however assured you consciousness replacing components yourself. If you privation to springiness it a try, iFixit is simply a bully spot to start.