PC boots to an empty desktop

[stuck]

Not long ago I started a thread about problems I had when my PC decided it was time to update from Win 10 1709 to 1803. Since then it's been OK, though decidedly not a zippy as it was before the update.

This evening it has taken ages to boot but now all I've got is an empty desktop. My taskbar is set to autohide but when I push the mouse off the edge to make it appear, it doesn't appear, all I get is a spinning wheel.

If I do ctrl alt del I get the usual options (lock, switch user etc.) but if I try to use task manager nothing happens. So far the only thing that has 'worked' is the power 'button' in the lower right corner of the ctrl alt del screen. Powering on again though just takes me back to an empty desktop.

I've a feeling the SSD has gone bad across crucial bits of the OS but before I buy a new disk and then have the joy of starting from bare metal/silicon any suggestions as to how I can try and get my desktop to appear?

Ken

[viking33]

Do you have a DVD with Win 10 on it?
If so, have you tried to boot to it and use the "Repair My System" option om te second screen? Select boot repair option. I've had reasonable good luck with that option. I'm only using those titles from memory, (mine) so they may be someting close and similar to what used. Just follow the prompts.

[stuck]

Do you have a DVD with Win 10 on it?

No but I should be able to create something via another PC and Microsoft's Win 10 media creation tool. That sounds like a good place to start. Thanks for the hint.

The other option is that it is still within its 12 month return-to-base warranty but I don't want to do that until I've had a good attempt at accessing the SSD. This is because although the vast majority of my data (documents, photos, etc.) is on a separate internal HDD, plus I have back-ups of the data on an external HDD, my working copies of the Outlook .pst files reside on the SSD. I don't want to return the box with those files still on the SSD.

Ken
PS I'm not likely to be able to respond very quickly to further replies to this thread as my only direct access is via my small and slow Win 7 Starter Ed. netbook or via my work PC

[stuck]

My local real IT guy, i.e. one of the guys in our IT Service Desk team where I work, has suggested that the problem might be a bad video driver update. He's had all sorts of grief with a Win 10 video driver update being shoved by MS onto Dell PCs (my box at home is a Dell).

I still need a Win 10 DVD first though. Downloading the media creation tool and burning a Win 10 ISO via my ancient Win XP box (the only other machine I've got at home) might be 'interesting'.

Ken

[Jay Freedman]

If you can set the BIOS to boot from a USB drive, the media creation tool can create one of those. It will start a lot faster than a DVD. I used a 16GB memory stick, but an 8GB one will probably be enough.

[stuck]

I'm pleased to report that, once my old XP box booted, I was able to:
1) get to the MS website and dowload the Win 10 1803 ISO
2) burn the ISO to a DVD using CDBurnerXP
3) access the BIOS on my Win 10 Box and make the DVD drive the default boot device
4) boot the Win 10 box from the DVD
5) use the 'repair' option from the menu

The first repair I tried was to go back to a previous version of Windows, since all this hassle has started since the cahnge form 1709 to 1803 but it said I couldn't do that. Next I to go back to a restore point from a few weeks back. This time the response was 'your drive has errors'. I cancelled out of that and used the makin repair option. Again the story was 'your drive has errors' but this time I said OK, fix them and left it to it.

When I went back at the end of the evening I had my desktop with all its icons and a functioning taskabr back. I also had a you need to repair Office dialog, presumably that had apeared when Outlook tried to launch (Outlook is in my Startup folder). I ran the Office quick repair option and after that had completed I could open Outlook. I couldn't check my mail though because the repair has lost all the account settings (my user name, POP server names etc.)

Tonight's task is to re-enter the mail account details and then I might be up and running again. Also probably need to look into buying a new SSD as I strongly suspect this one wil go bad again very soon.

Ken

[HansV]

Good news!

[John Gray]

Ken - well done on your recovery!

I don't know whether your specific SSD supports the SMART system, but it might be worth looking at one or more of these tools to see if there is any useful information produced thereby...

[stuck]

...I don't know whether your specific SSD supports the SMART system, but it might be worth looking at one or more of these tools...

I don't know either but I'll add checking out these tools to the 'to do' list.

Thanks,

Ken

[stuck]

Sooo, I'm back home and the Win 10 box did boot without the DVD but it's not really usable.

I've already got a backup of the three Outlook.pst files from not long before the box crashed and I've got a Mailstore Home backup as well but when I tried to take a fresh copy of the .pst files, the one for my wife's account it said it couldn't read the disk. Clicking 'try again' several times seemed to get the copy to complete. When I tried Firefox it just froze.

If I click on the notification icon nothing happens, if I try just about anything else either nothing happens or it takes several minutes before it responds. Meanwhile, Task Manger shows nothing doing anything (System Idle process at 99% of CPU).

Windows Defender appeared to have run a quick scan on boot and had found no threats but I couldn't get Malwarebytes to open.

After a reboot, Windows defender does not appear in the system tray and if I click on the search icon it appears and instantly disappears. Explorer won't open. Task manger won't open. No Office apps will open.

There is definitely something very wrong with this installation.

Ken

[stuck]

Latest...

The next day the PC failed to boot and the Win 10 DVD could not repair it this time.

I've been in touch the company where I bought this PC. They won't consider a replacemnet of the SSD under warranty until I've reinstalled Windows from scratch and then run some diagnostics on the SSD.

Guess what I'll be doing this weekend

Ken

[HansV]

Sheesh, not much luck with this PC!

[stuck]

Sheesh, not much luck with this PC!

Only recently, it was great until the update from 1709 to 1803. It booted in seconds and ran everything I wanted, including some 'legacy' stuff that intheory isn't Win 10 compatible.

As I reported in another thread, something went wrong during the update, the thing powered off completely. I'm sure it shouldn't have done that, reboot yes but not go totally cold. It's not been right since then.

Ken

[stuck]

Just finished reinstalling Windows. It seemed to go smoothly BUT once it was done and I was back at the default Win 10 desktop one of the notifications in the side bar was that 'this disk has errors'.

I've not acted on that message yet. I've reported back to the company where I got the machine. It being the weekend though I'm not expecting a response until Monday.

Ken

[stuck]

I was asked to run a remote session (via PC Doctor), which I did and they've confirmed the SSD has failed.


Now all I've got to do is post the dud back to them and wait for a replacement to arrive. This is called 'progress'.

Ken

[HansV]

Sad! (or is that a political comment?)

[stuck]

More just frustration at the very slow nature of the progress but at least I'll (eventually) get a replacement SSD under warranty.

Coupled with the nagging feeling that if MS hadn't tried to progress me from 1709 to 1803 then I'd still have a more than adequate and still fully functional PC. Or maybe I'm being a bit harsh there, after all it could just have been a coincidence the thing died at the same time the update kicked in.

Ken

[HansV]

It seems unlikely that the SSD failed because of the update...

[John Gray]

It seems unlikely that the SSD failed because of the update...

Not even because the electronics was probably being more heavily stressed than in normal everyday use? On the other hand, a backup would cause intensive use of the electronics...

[Leif]

Not even because the electronics was probably being more heavily stressed than in normal everyday use?

I think we are talking solid-state electronics here - there are no (electro-)mechanical parts to be stressed. To an extent, solid-state memory will have a design limit on the number of read-write cycles, but I find it difficult to believe Stuck would be anywhere near that. The likelihood is that there is a component that has prematurely failed - it could be simply one failed transistor out of hundreds of millions - and statistically this is just bad luck.