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Question

Recovered laptop HDD won't boot to Win10

Mar 13, 2017 1:22PM PDT

Problems with wife's laptop. It is a HP655, AMD E2-1800, 1700MHz processor, 4mb RAM running Win10 (upgrade from Cool.
It had been getting slower and slower, then wouldn't boot up at all. The Dell diagnostics said the HDD was failing DST.
I tried ages to get a boot CD or USB to work, but no go. Then, I bought a cable and removed the HDD and connected it to my desktop.
The desktop could see the drive and after running CHKDSK, I could see files. At this point, I backed up all her docs and photos.
Now, getting the HDD to boot up in the laptop is the bit I can't get working. It just says 'Install an operating system'.
All the files seem to be present and CHKDSK isn't reporting any errors. I can use the Win10 boot CD now, but the startup repair won't run. I've tried all the bootrec commands:
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd

the last line gives me an error - 'the requested system device cannot be found'.
Ultimately, I could either buy a new HDD and re-install Win10, or re-format the existing HDD and re-install. It's just frustrating that I've managed to recover from the original error, can see all the files, but can't get it to boot up.
Any advice?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
I have yet to fix a non-booter with those commands.
Mar 13, 2017 1:30PM PDT

If it fails to boot I just repair W10 using its tools (using a W10 DVD/USB). If that fails, I wipe the drive and start fresh.

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Win10 boot DVD doesn't work
Mar 14, 2017 12:33AM PDT

Start-up repair on the boot DVD doesn't run. The only other options on the boot DVD to repair it is the command prompt as far as I'm aware.
Looking like reformat and re-load Win10 then.
Cheers.

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Format may not be the right choice
Mar 14, 2017 7:57AM PDT

I usually delete partitions or erase the drive before the OS install. Formatting the drive can trip up a new install.

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Win10 re-installed
Mar 16, 2017 12:57AM PDT

I ended up making a Win10 media flash drive. Ran that on the laptop and did all the partition work before re-installing Win10.
Reasonably straightforward and the laptop seems to be working well so far.
Cheers.