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Question

Win 10 stuck in "Attempting repairs"

Sep 14, 2017 5:35AM PDT

Have an older HP desktop running Win 10 Home 64-bit. Last night while browsing web in Chrome, PC went BSOD and rebooted to the "Attempting Repairs" loop.

Have tried to boot to bios multiple times, but that doesn't happen and it just goes right back into Attempting Repairs. Yes, I've tried F10, F2, F11, Win/b on startup but none are recognized or acted on.

Any ideas whatsoever would be appreciated.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: stuck attempting repairs
Sep 14, 2017 6:03AM PDT

I don't think that the accessing or changing something in the BIOS will help.

However, if you press the right key for your machine (check the user manual, it could in principle be something else than you listed, for example DEL) and it doesn't work, it's a serious hardware error on the motherboard, totally unrelated to anything in Windows.
However, HP in https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/bph07110 says it's F10 or F1 (if "older" means from 2005 or earlier). But check the moment you press it.

If repair doesn't work, you'll need a refresh or reset. Make the correct Windows 10 install disk or stick using the Media Creation Tool (google that, if necessary), boot from it and go ahead for the recovery options.
However, it could be that you need to access the BIOS to tell it to boot from the DVD or the stick. That depends on the current settings for the boot priority.

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Answer
Now that I've dealt with this many times.
Sep 14, 2017 7:15AM PDT

The fix everytime answer is going to be hard on some. When we don't see it repair we offer the owner the option of pulling the HDD out, slip in new SSD/HDD and reinstall. The old HDD/SSD goes into some USB case so they can reclaim their files.

That out of the way, PCs, smart phones can not be used without backups. Many try and end up in your position.

As to the BIOS change, I've only seen that wipe out the contents of the drive. It's bad advice.

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Thanks for the thoughts
Sep 14, 2017 12:07PM PDT

After much screwing around, had to do a clean install of Win 10 on a different drive than was in the PC before. Still can't get to bios with F key strokes on boot and any time I try to put a original drive back in the PC, I get mad beeping on boot/post and it hangs. Have no clue what's going on, but the PC is functional -- for now. Very concerning though that I can't get to the bios.

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Bios
Sep 14, 2017 6:15PM PDT

It may not be a 'F' key, look in your manual.