Then I replaced the current HDD inside the laptop with a new HDD that was formatted to be bootable. Then I tried the same thing with an external drive. I changed the boot order in the BIOS to make the 'USB HDD', 'USB FDD' and 'USB CDROM' first in the order. I've tried it with the USB formatted as NTSF and FAT32. I've used the diskpart command to clean, format and make the USB bootable. At first, I tried to create a bootable USB so I could boot from it and install a new version of Windows. Since she didn't do any backups (I know, I know!) I want to try and do this without losing all her data.
Doesn't tell me what the actual problems are, though.
No matter how many times I tried that, I still got the same result: Problems encountered at start up prevent the computer from starting Windows. I tried booting in Safe Mode, but it goes into diagnostic mode right away and then tries to 'repair' whatever is preventing it from starting. I've tried so many different things in the last 2 days that my head is spinning. I tried switching to another user, but she's the only user defined on the laptop so that's all I could pick. Alt-Ctrl-Del brings up the screen to lock the computer, switch user, restart, etc. Pressing the Windows key doesn't bring up the Start menu. The screen was black, the mouse pointer is visible and I can move it, but can't actually do anything.
My wife's Acer Aspire E15 (model N15Q1) bit the dust a few days ago.
