A few days ago, my PC crashed to a black screen but didn’t turn off. It happened again yesterday, but after a hard reset, Windows booted to a black screen with a loading icon and my cursor. I just put in a new SSD, so I thought maybe that was the issue. Moved Windows over to the new SSD, but it didn’t fix the problem. I updated my graphics drivers and things seemed okay, but today my PC reset itself, and now I’m back to the black screen with the loading icon. I can’t even use commands like ctrl+alt+delete. Is my PC dying?
Did you try a clean install of Windows on the new SSD instead of moving it? Sometimes the migration causes issues.
How would I do that? I don’t have my Windows key or a CD to reinstall.
You can clean install Windows 11 using a USB drive (at least 16GB). Upgrade to Windows 11 could fix it. Just remember to update your BIOS and drivers.
I don’t have a USB right now, but Windows 10 keeps prompting me to upgrade to Windows 11. Would that work?
If you can’t do a clean install right now, you can try the ‘remove everything’ option when upgrading to Windows 11. Just remember to back up your data!
Good idea. My Windows is legit, I think I installed it from a disc but lost it.
You should be fine as long as you’re logged in with a Microsoft account. Just to be safe, get your product key by running this in cmd as admin: wmic path SoftwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey.
You can make a bootable USB. Google ‘Windows 11 USB’ and click the official Microsoft link. You can also try booting in safe mode and restoring to an earlier point.