After Latest Update Wife's Laptop is Broken!

[BillW]

When the latest update arrived on my laptop a week or so ago I installed it with no problem and my laptop is still running fine. So, when it arrived on my wife's laptop I initiated the install and the laptop hasn't been able to run since then! I don't know if the update was installed completely! I thought it installed on my laptop very quickly so I didn't bother to plug in the power cord when I initiated the update on hers because hers showed a full battery -- my big mistake! When I came back the laptop was powered down. When I try to power it up it runs with a blank screen for a long time and then gets to the "Choose your keyboard layout" screen! If I select the "US" choice and wait a pretty long time it gets to a Choose an Option page that offers two choices: "Troubleshoot" and "Turn off your PC". When I select Troubleshoot it goes to the Troubleshoot screen where I can choose "Recovery Tool" or "Advanced Options". I have tried each of those choices and neither one accomplishes anything useful.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get this laptop going again?

Thanks,
Bill

[stuck]

I suspect you'll have to reinstall Windows from a USB / DVD. If you don't such a master disk Google for Microsoft's Win 10 media creation tool,which will enable you to make one.

Ken

[BillW]

Thanks Ken, that sounds like a good approach. When I tried to download the Win 10 media creation tool I was told: I need to have a license to install Windows 10. That is reasonable and I should already have one for each of our two computers but I don't know how to get to either one. Do I need to perform some retrieval process for that before I start the media creation process?

Thanks,
Bill

[DaveA]

Use the Windows key code off of the OEM sticker on your machine.

[BillW]

Well, there isn't much there! It is a Toshiba laptop and the sticker on the back has the following information:
Satellite C55Dt-A5174 System Unit
Part No PSCFWU-03P005 Windows 8.1
Serial No xxxxxxx DC19V . . . 3.42A

That's all there is! I don't know which part of that you are suggesting I use. BTW, I updated it to Windows 10 when that update was published for all of us a good while ago.

Thanks for the suggestion, Dave A.

Bill

[Argus]

There is no CoA (Certificate of Authenticity) stickers on "recent" laptops (had forgot about that, but remember the discussion when Windows 8 came, and "Activation 3.0"), in many cases; could also be inside the battery compartment.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 625c7e68ff" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(BTW, there is a similar case here ...: https://forums.windowssecrets.com/showt ... -my-laptop" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

[BillW]

Thanks for the update Argus, especially for the link to the related thread. It turns out that related thread was one I started on another technical forum 2 years ago! I had forgotten all about it. I'm going to go ahead and download the Windows 10 file and solve any permission problems afterwards.

Bill

[Argus]

I thought so.

I have not tried to download/create an ISO file with Microsoft’s tool, so I don't know if you will need a product key to create the install media (but it seems odd).

There is some info about product keys (OEM) and Windows 8/8.1 on this page:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... f9639a0559" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

See also this:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 5deb354931" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[stuck]

When I downloaded a Win 10 iso a few weeks ago (in a vain attempt at reviving my bust PC because it turned out the real problem was the SSD was failing) I remember I had to enter the key that's on my PC before I got the download link.

Once I had downloaded the .iso file I burnt it to a DVD using my ancient XP machine. When I then used the DVD as a boot disk, to reinstall Win 10, I don't remember having to re-enter the key. It said it was activated with a digital license.

Ken

[Argus]

When I downloaded a Win 10 iso a few weeks ago (in a vain attempt at reviving my bust PC because it turned out the real problem was the SSD was failing) I remember I had to enter the key that's on my PC before I got the download link.

I see, I didn't follow through.

If I visit Microsoft's page for Windows 10 disk images with another OS, Linux, then I'm redirected to a page with download links.

Windows10ISO.PNG

When I then used the DVD as a boot disk, to reinstall Win 10, I don't remember having to re-enter the key. It said it was activated with a digital license.

Yes, there is a digital license in some cases. (Activation in Windows 10.)

Activating after reinstalling Windows 10
How you activate Windows 10 after reinstalling it depends on how Windows 10 was originally installed on your device.

If you activated a free upgrade to Windows 10 or bought and activated Windows 10 from the Microsoft Store, you have a digital license for your device. This means you can reinstall the same edition of Windows 10 that your device has a digital license for without entering a product key. During reinstallation, if you’re asked to enter a product key, you can skip this step. Windows 10 will automatically activate online after the installation is complete.

[stuck]

If I visit Microsoft's page for Windows 10 disk images with another OS...

I guess that's what also happened to me. My Win 10 box was dead so I had to use my XP machine to reach the MS website. XP won't support the media creation tool but was able to get the .iso file, after I had shown I was entitled to download it because I had entered a valid key. Once I had the .iso it was just a matter of using CDBurnerXP to burn the .iso to a DVD in the correct manner to end up with a bootable Win 10 master disk.

Ken

[Argus]

I guess that's what also happened to me. My Win 10 box was dead so I had to use my XP machine to reach the MS website. XP won't support the media creation tool but was able to get the .iso file, after I had shown I was entitled to download it because I had entered a valid key.

Odd. My point mentioning it was that I didn't have to enter a key to get a final choice between 32-bit or 64-bit version and start the download. I don't understand why MSFT must fiddle around like this.