Windows 8 laptop won't boot using bootable DVD or bootable USB stick
I have a Gateway NE56R31u with Windows 8.1 that was working fine until I opened it up in the morning 2 days ago. It showed an error 0xc0000225. No matter what I do in response to that error message it just shows the splash screen and sits there. I've tried to boot with 3 bootable DVDs, one of which is Windows 8 installation media. With the other two it doesn't even acknowledge that there's a disk there; with the installation media it gives the familiar "press any key to boot from disk" but after I press a key it shows the splash screen with the spinning circle "working" indicator for a couple minutes then goes to a black screen and stays there. I've also tried two bootable USB sticks. One of them is the restore media that I created when the laptop was new per the manufacturer's instructions, the other one is a bootable Ubuntu stick. The laptop doesn't acknowledge either one. I've gone into BIOS/UEFI and moved the boot media type to the top of the boot order for each of the media types and it doesn't make any difference. Letting it sit overnight to cool off makes no difference. Does anyone have any ideas?
user480532 Answers
That you can get into BIOS suggests the CPU is working.
That you cannot boot from either DVD or USB suggests a fault on the Motherboard. That most likely explains why BIOS can load but nothing else.
You may want to get the machine serviced to see if it can be economically repaired.
JohnInterestingly enough, I replaced the HD and was able to reinstall the OS from the recovery USB stick I mentioned earlier. That strikes me as really weird, but it booted right up once the old HD was gone; before I took it out, the machine totally ignored the two USB sticks I tried.
I put the old HD into a USB enclosure so I could check it out with my desktop pc, and the C: partition certainly appears to be out of whack:
-I tried to format it and Windows says the partition is in use by some other app.
-Partition Wizard says the partition is in use by some other app.
-Windows Defender can't complete a virus scan on it.
One of the many possible reasons cited for the error code I reported is a failed Windows Update so maybe that happened. IDK. Anyway, thanks for the replies.
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