Why would my computer suddenly show this?

[KinseyWinsey]

🤬

I'm no expert, but have you tried switching it off and then back on again? Switch your broadband router off as well for 10 minutes.

Your hard disc is either wiped or fried, ime.

How old is it?

It looks like your hard drive may have corrupted.

You used to be able to boot from an external drive, don’t know if you can do that these days.

It's either a corrupt hard drive or your CMOS has been reset and changed the boot devices around, latter is much less likely, had any random blue screens or error messages pre-this message?

Were you using your computer and it crashed showing that message, or did you switch it on and the message came up?

If the latter, do you have a USB plugged in or a disc (CD/DVD)? If so, eject and reboot.

I was using it. Blue screen popped up saying errors had been detected and it was going to restart. And then this.

Something failed. Hopefully just the hard drive.

Note to everyone: Make sure you're PC's backed up! Hard drives do NOT last forever!

For some reason it can't find your hard drive.

Deep breath. Don't panic. It may still be recoverable, but will need a bit of TLC.

Remove any media from CD \ DVD drives (or floppy drive if that old ), your system may be set to boot from these in preference. Failing that, sorry, but your disc is fried.

Your hard drive has failed. How old is the computer?

@AutumnDragon

Remove any media from CD \ DVD drives (or floppy drive if that old ), your system may be set to boot from these in preference. Failing that, sorry, but your disc is fried.

That doesn't necessarily mean all the data has gone though.

It might be possible to boot a LiveCD with some tools and mount the disk to hoover off any readable data.

OP: If the obvious of power cycling and checking there's nothing it's trying to boot from before your hard disk, then it's going to need some expert attention.

Alternatively, just replace the hard disk, reinstall windows, and restore your data from backups.

Shut down and remove any media such as USB sticks, dongles, CDs etc. Reboot and see what happens. If it happens again, try physically opening up the computer and removing and remounting the hard drive. Close up and reboot. If it still does it, your hard drive has packed up.

That does look like your hard drive has packed up!

That's a bastard to deal with. I hope you have back ups of the important stuff.

Your best bet now, after doing the unplugging of peripherals and restarting, as recommended above, is to leave it alone and call a local professional.

Good luck.

😞 Bugger. But why would this happen?

Laptop about four years old.

Likely that it's caused by overheating. Laptops don't tend to exhaust heat well, if they're dusty and used in bed on duvets then they will get even hotter.

It's probable as people above have said that the HDD is fried, but if you have access to a copy of Windows you could try reinstalling. If that doesn't work then it's virtually certain that your HDD is fried.

If it the HDD is dead it is usually not too difficult to replace a laptop hard drive (many are designed to be upgraded)

Four years is about the lifespan of a laptop, unfortunately.

Overheating is a good point - where do you normally use it? On a flat surface like a table or tray, or something soft like a blanket?

@BertieBotts

Four years is about the lifespan of a laptop, unfortunately.

Overheating is a good point - where do you normally use it? On a flat surface like a table or tray, or something soft like a blanket?

Depends on the user surely?

I’ve a dell , 10 years old, used daily, only now is the screen starting to fail ( dead pixels ).

OP, as pp suggests, remove any usb sticks, cd or dvds and power off/on.
Working?

My sympathies, OP.

It's a good point tbh @IShouldntPostBut - I'll back up my hard drive later today.

Things fail. It's the nature of things I'm afraid.

Which is why backups aren't really an option, but an essential. And a good backup regime can also protect you from waking up and finding your disk encrypted and a ransom note to recover it.

I've had laptops which lasted 8-10 years, but it's unusual and was probably a higher end model when bought.

4 years is about average for most mid-low price models especially if you're overloading it by running programs it can't really handle or letting it overheat or carrying it around while it's turned on (especially in sleep mode) etc.

It is quite early for a hard drive to fail though but not outside the realms of possibility.

If you're lucky, a hard drive will fail incrementally, and you'll get an odd crash beforehand as a warning.

But in general I've seen more machines "just fail" than give a warning. Which (broken record) is just the way of things.

All may not be lost for the OP. But they will need to locate someone who is able and willing to run with some diagnostics to maybe remount and recover the data.

One of my "inventions you'll never see" a few years ago at one of these corporate brainstorming jollies events was a USB dongle you plugged into a machine that booted it up and then allowed incoming connections from a repair shop. Came second to a solar powered whoopee cushion.

However these days you may not need that. If you can download and burn a LiveCD image of one of the various recovery distros of Linux, you can fire up a browser and then use RTC to connect to a friend who might be able to help.

The OP doesn't say if theirs is a spinning rust HDD or SSD. I wouldn't expect an SSD to fail this far in.

My best laptop expiry event was a lightening strike. No idea where it hit nearby, but the motherboard was fried.

The blue screen that popped up is what's known as the "blue screen of death" or BSOD.

Hard drives fail pretty regularly and there's a number of reasons that cause it (static, magnets, current surge and they're just the environmental factors)

I had a Windows update that was corrupted during installation and it ballsed up that HD but the info could potentially be salvaged, depending on what's wrong with it

OP, what’s the make model of the laptop?

Even if you’ve decided to buy another laptop, it might be possible to read the drive.

You’d need to take the back off the laptop to get the drive out , then buy an adaptor ( about £10 ) which the drive plugs into and becomes a usb stick, albeit a hard drive shaped usb stick!

@tanstaafl

OP, what’s the make model of the laptop?

Even if you’ve decided to buy another laptop, it might be possible to read the drive.

You’d need to take the back off the laptop to get the drive out , then buy an adaptor ( about £10 ) which the drive plugs into and becomes a usb stick, albeit a hard drive shaped usb stick!

Looks like the actual laptop is firing - so no need to remove the disk if you can boot a recovery CD/DVD/USB