When Windows 10 Won’t Boot
What are your options if Windows 10 won’t boot up when you turn on your PC?
After two unsuccessful startups, Windows 10 should automatically boot up into the Windows 10 RE (Recovery Environment). If it doesn’t you can also restart your computer while holding down the Shift key to bring up the boot Options menu.
You can also start Windows RE from a Windows 10 installation DVD or USB, from a recovery drive (which you can make, see this page), or from the recovery partition on a device, if that option is available.
If you have problems starting Windows 10 or if you want to do troubleshooting, System Restore, etc., you can open the Choose an Option menu manually by restarting your computer while holding down the Shift key.
The initial Choose An Option menu allows you to click Continue to start your PC without taking any further action (i.e. restart normally). This is the option to choose if your system automatically booted into Windows RE (Recovery Environment) because of a minor issue that doesn’t need repair.
If you click “Continue” and your fails to boot after 2 more attempts, then the next time you see the “Choose an option” dialog, choose the “Troubleshoot” option.
When you click “Troubleshoot”, you’ll see the Advanced Options menu:
The options above explained…
System Restore Allows you to choose a restore point created earlier and restore the system configuration.
System Image Recovery
Replaces everything on the computer with a system image created using the Windows Backup utility from Windows 7 or later. (This utility is available in the Control Panel, via the System Image Backup link, at the bottom of the File History option.) This option will not be useful if you don’t use Windows Backup utility.
Startup Repair
If you choose this option, Windows attempts to diagnose and automatically correct common boot problems. The Startup Repair option starts an automated startup repair procedure. If Windows 10 isn’t starting properly, serious missing or corrupt file errors or a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), Startup Repair is should be your first troubleshooting step.
Command Prompt
Opens an administrative command prompt, where you can use Windows commands from the Command Prompt.
Startup Settings
Choosing Startup Settings will restart your computer and bring up the Startup Settings menu. The menu has several special ways to boot Windows 10, including Safe Mode. The Startup Settings menu is very similar to the Advanced Boot Options menu from previous versions of Windows 10. If you’re having problems booting your computer, this is the next option to try if Startup Repair does not fix your boot problems.
UEFI Firmware Settings
Allows you to change startup settings such as boot order and Secure Boot. On an older PC with a legacy BIOS, this option leads to the Startup Settings menu instead.
If your PC won’t start, you do have options. And now that you know what the main options are, you will know what to do if you ever have problems booting your Windows 10 PC.
After my computer updated to the latest windows update it wouldn’t boot up. I tried all of the above options but none of them worked. I finally downloaded the Windows Instillation disc and had to completely re-install Windows because it couldn’t repair itself.
Holly,
You can’t download a Windows 10 installation disk. You can download an ISO file and create a Windows 10 DVD – you can also use the download tool to create an installation USB file.
The install USB/DVD is bootable. So you can absolutely positively boot with the disk or usb flash drive (if your BIOS boot drive order supports it). So there was no reason to reinstall Windows in order to access the troubleshooting tools. You could have booted with the installation DVD and accessed all the troubleshooting tools – or if that failed, you could have done a repair install of Windows 10 – which preserves your programs & files.
Thanks,
TC