Failed Harddrive, says booted using installation media so cd wont work

A while ago I fried my Alienware 17 hard drive due to it getting stuck in a repair loop and I turned it off to many times. After that I tried to clean and restart my HP Envy laptop, but as it was loading in factory settings, the computer overheated and broke that hard drive as well, but this one is recoverable. The HP hard drive will boot into auto repair as opposed to the Alienware hard drive which is not even recognized as connected to the computer. Because I have not used my Alienware in almost a year now, I bought a windows 10 recovery disk and put the HP hard drive into the Alienware. When I previously attempted to recover the Alienware hard drive ( which wasn't being recognized), I looked online and followed tips which never actually recovered anything. After that, I had messed with the booting operations and I dont know how to put it back to normal first of all. When I boot up the Alienware with the HP hard drive, it first diagnoses, attempts to repair, and always fails. I waited until it had failed to repair, selected advanced options, and chose recovery with a CD. Although the windows 10 recovery disk, I'm assuming it could still work to simply install windows 10 and fix the hard drive from crashing on the 8.1 OS. However, when the computer boots the recovery disk, the installation application says the computer was booting using the Windows installation media, even when the disk was not in the computer. The prompt says to boot windows normally, but i cannot boot windows at all because the hard drive is broken. I haven't tried booting in safe mode yet but I am assuming i cannot boot in safe mode because the hard drive is broken. Please help!

Why not just replace the hard drive with a new one and Clean install windows 10 Using MCT to create a USB install media. After you get back up and running you can hook up your old drives via USB and see if any data is recoverable. If you intend to continue using 8.1 I suggest you post in the 8 Forum MCT will work for windows 8.1 also clean installing could be a little different than windows 10. I don't know it, it used to be haven't installed 8.1 is a few years.

Clintlgm said:

Why not just replace the hard drive with a new one and Clean install windows 10 Using MCT to create a USB install media. After you get back up and running you can hook up your old drives via USB and see if any data is recoverable. If you intend to continue using 8.1 I suggest you post in the 8 Forum MCT will work for windows 8.1 also clean installing could be a little different than windows 10. I don't know it, it used to be haven't installed 8.1 is a few years.

I don't want to have to buy a new hard drive if I could somehow salvage this one. Do you think I could boot the computer in safe mode even if it's attempting to repair?

jake myrick said:

I don't want to have to buy a new hard drive if I could somehow salvage this one. Do you think I could boot the computer in safe mode even if it's attempting to repair?

Hard disk drive failure - Wikipedia
If you want to have any chance of saving your data don't do anything else with your failing hard drive. If you are not concerned about your data do anything you want to. Failing hard drives cannot be repaired for more than enough time to save your data if you're lucky. Software for your hard drive is not failing the Mechanical parts of your hard drive are failing

I have no idea how you could even get into safe mode while this hard drive is trying to repair its self or what you would do once you got into safe mode if you could.

Caledon Ken said:

First you should never buy a Windows 10 recovery disk. Windows 10 is available online for free.

You are likely are having problems booting as the machines were set up differently, one using UEFI one using MBR.

If there are no files you need on harddrive I agree, clean install your Alienware. Here is tutorial. It would be important to delete all partitions as per the tutorial.

Clean Install Windows 10

I have tried to clean install 10, but as I said when I go through the installation it says that windows was booted using the windows installation media, even when the disk was not in the computer.

Clintlgm said:

Hard disk drive failure - Wikipedia
If you want to have any chance of saving your data don't do anything else with your failing hard drive. If you are not concerned about your data do anything you want to. Failing hard drives cannot be repaired for more than enough time to save your data if you're lucky. Software for your hard drive is not failing the Mechanical parts of your hard drive are failing

I have no idea how you could even get into safe mode while this hard drive is trying to repair its self or what you would do once you got into safe mode if you could.

Ok, thanks anyway.

jake myrick said:

Ok, thanks anyway.

You could try Caledon Ken suggestion if your hard drive ever completes repairing itself.