Windows 10 won't boot "Repairing disk errors..."

I recently (November 2016) purchased my gaming pc and have had absolutely no problems with it, until earlier today
when the pc froze, then about 2 hours later it crashed. I proceeded to reboot the system 4 times before it said "Preparing automatic repair" below the windows logo and spinning gear. Then it said "Repairing disk errors. This might take more than an hour to complete." below the windows logo and spinning gear. I let it run for about four hours with no progress and then I turned of my computer, left it for an hour and turned it back on, but I go through the same process again. Any ideas what to do?

You need to test the hard disk to determine whether whatever problem it's had is recoverable or whether the disk is completely dead. Since you can't do that from Windows you should boot the Windows installation media you have (DVD or USB stick). That will start the Windows installer and on the screen with the big 'Install Now' button click the Repair option in the bottom left corner. In the repair options navigate to the menu from where you can open a command prompt and do that. At the command prompt enter the command "chkdsk /r" (without the quotes).

If that command fails, or doesn't complete, or reports errors that could not be fixed, then you're probably looking at a new hard disk I'm afraid.

If chkdsk reports no errors or reports errors found but corrected then you should try booting Windows normally again. Note that, if errors were found and corrected there is a chance that you may have suffered some data loss. It depends on what errors were found, how they were corrected, and whether they were found in sectors containing data. There is also a chance that Windows might not boot properly or that some programs might not work properly, again depending on what errors were found, how they were corrected, and whether they were found in critical Windows or program areas of the disk.

I have a disk with windows 10 on it, however my pc does not have a disk drive, is there any way to get around this?

GPReece said:

I have a disk with windows 10 on it, however my pc does not have a disk drive, is there any way to get around this?

Click to expand...

Yes. The easiest way is to go here and download the Windows 10 media creation tool. Run that and choose the same version of Windows 10 that your license is for (it won't work otherwise). Tell the media creation tool to download an ISO image and to burn that to a USB stick (4GB min). Once that's done you can boot the USB stick.

I only have that pc, what way would I be able to get hold of that file, would I need to have another pc or is there an alternative way?

GPReece said:

I only have that pc, what way would I be able to get hold of that file, would I need to have another pc or is there an alternative way?

Click to expand...

Not without paying for a new license, not as far as I know anyway. Ask a friend to download the ISO and burn it to a USB stick for you.

I have managed to get hold of a USB with windows 10 on using a friends pc, however when I enter the command prompt "chkdsk /r" I am met with
"The type of file system is NTFS"
"Cannot lock current drive"
"Windows cannot run disk checking in this volume because it is write protected"

GPReece said:

I have managed to get hold of a USB with windows 10 on using a friends pc, however when I enter the command prompt "chkdsk /r" I am met with
"The type of file system is NTFS"
"Cannot lock current drive"
"Windows cannot run disk checking in this volume because it is write protected"

Click to expand...

It sounds like your trying to run chkdsk on the WinPE environments RAM disk (usually drive X) and that is indeed write protected. You need to note the drive letter of your Windows system drive in the WinPE environment (that's the environment that's running when you boot the Windows installation media) and run chkdsk on that, so assuming your Windows system drive was drive D: in the WinPE environment you'd enter the command "chkdsk d: /r" (without the quotes).

I have managed to get the pc working again by reinstalling windows, unfortunately I have lost all of my files but at least it works, thank you very much for your help

GPReece said:

I have managed to get the pc working again by reinstalling windows, unfortunately I have lost all of my files but at least it works, thank you very much for your help

Click to expand...

I would still run a chkdsk /r command over that disk, it may be starting to fail.....