Laptop stuck in blue screen loop (Windows 10), how can I start it back up?

Neoking

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Aug 5, 2013
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I bought my laptop (HP Envy 17- j013cl) in December of 2013, and it was working fine until April of this year, where it occasionally would become unresponsive and would get blue screens.

The problems increased in July, and I tried doing a reset that kept all my files, and for a few days it seemed to work, but it eventually went back to its original issues. Then I thought Windows 10 would have been able to solve the issue, but the problems came back. Then, I did a complete factory reset of my computer with Windows 10 in the hopes of starting fresh, and it worked fine for almost a week, but yesterday it started lagging, got the blue screen, but this time it's stuck in the blue screen loop with this error : UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

I'm confident it's not an issue with Windows 10 because this issue has occurred way before I got it. I'm concerned it may be a hardware issue because a factory reset should have fixed any issue that my software or files could have been causing. Where can I go from here?
 

Neoking

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Is it reparable? This is quite inconvenient because I have no money for a new PC hahaha...
 

MarkW

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Well, if it is unmountable, which it clearly seems to be, about the only thing you can try, if you have a way to boot from USB or optical disk, its to try to do a clean install, and format the hard drive in the process. That might work, or it might not. It depends on if the drive is simply corrupted or if it is failing.

Alternatively, you can buy either a 7mm hard drive or SSD, and replace the one in the laptop now. However, that too will require a clean install of the operating system, and a format in the process.
 

Neoking

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If I choose to repair it with any of those methods, will it require me to purchase a new copy of Windows for a clean install?
 

MarkW

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If you already have the install DVD, the Windows key should be inside the cover of the box thing its in.

If it came pre-installed, and you do not know what it is, I would contact the company that made the laptop. You are not the only person that has had a hard drive problem. They should be able to send you media and even the key number since they know what it was and what OS you had installed.

If they refuse to help you, then yes, you are going to need to buy Windows. It will install and run for 30 days without a key, but after that, it stops.
 

bonou2

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Mar 8, 2014
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If your laptop came with Windows 8 or 7 (any edition and version), you can get the license by running a license key retriever (but only if the disk is not formatted). I generally use license crawler, it is free, and never failed me once. It retrieves all license keys which I know of, including Windows, Office, AutoCAD, PhotoShop, Nero etc.

However if you have upgraded from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10, you do not need to install Windows 7 or 8 and then upgrade to 10 again. Just install the same Windows 10 edition which is currently installed on your laptop, and then it should activate automatically upon connection with the Internet. If the activation does not occur automatically, right click on computer > properties. On the last part of the window, there's the Activation part, and go from there.
 

Neoking

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How do I go about doing this? My computer is not starting up at all, so with what way can I retrieve its license key?
 

bonou2

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Plug in the HDD onto a bootable PC, find a software which extracts the registry settings from that same HDD. Or else boot wiht an Windows 10 Installation disk, and perform a repair. If the issue is software related, it may be solved. Then recover the license keys, and format the HDD and re-install Windows.
Also test the hard disk, so that if it's the case that it's failing you would also solve the faulty HDD.
 

catney

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Jan 16, 2016
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