I recently tried to factory reset my PC, but it bluescreened twice during the Windows installation. Now, I can't boot into Windows at all. I attempted to install a fresh copy of Windows, but neither my HDD nor SSD is being detected. Here are my specs: Intel i7 12700, 1TB WD Black SSD, 16GB DDR4 RAM, and Nvidia 3070 Ti. Every time I try to boot (even in safe mode), I get a message saying 'the computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error, Windows installation cannot proceed.' If I click OK, it just waits a bit before showing a bluescreen with the stop code 'clock_watchdog_timeout' without even starting the data collection.
1 Answer
The 'clock watchdog' error is definitely a red flag. It happened to me too, and I ended up needing to replace my motherboard. One thing you can try is booting from a Linux live USB. If it works well, that can help you rule out hardware issues and you can run some stress tests from there. Just make sure you have a reliable Linux installer handy to create the USB.
Thanks for the tip! Do you know where I can find a Linux installer?