My PC suddenly powered off while I was working in After Effects. Since then, it freezes on the spinning loading screen during startup and won't boot into Windows 11. I can access the recovery environment, but every repair attempt eventually hangs at the same screen. So far I've reset the BIOS settings, run Command Prompt scans and repairs, tried System Restore, and removed recent Windows updates, but nothing has fixed it. I'd prefer not to reset or reinstall Windows because I need to keep my files. The drive still appears to be detected, and I'm looking for a safe way to diagnose the problem and repair Windows without losing my data.
1 Answer
Before doing anything that could change the disk or Windows installation, back up your important files. You can create a bootable USB with a live environment such as Hiren’s BootCD PE or a Linux distribution, boot from it, and copy your files to an external drive. Once the data is safe, you can continue troubleshooting or reinstall Windows if necessary. Also check whether the drive is detected consistently and run a health check, since a failing SSD or hard drive can cause repeated boot failures.
I briefly reached Safe Mode and disabling startup programs didn’t help. Windows did boot once after I disabled the graphics and network drivers, but re-enabling the network drivers caused the problem again. Now I can’t even get back into Safe Mode, so I’m unsure whether this is a driver issue or something more serious.
I managed to start Hiren’s BootCD PE, but I’m hoping to repair Windows instead of reinstalling it. System File Checker found corrupted files it couldn’t repair, while DISM failed because it couldn’t find the required source files. Is there a way to provide DISM with the Windows image from the boot USB?