BSOD error 0xc000185 when booting

Before I begin, I can't post the dm logs as per the instructions, as I can't boot my pc to windows.

So, about 2 weeks ago, my pc began to experience some lag spikes in windows itself. It would take a good minute or two to open a file that was normally next to instantaneous before. This slowly got worse to the point where I would get BSOD crashes (I forget the error it flagged up at the time, and I can't get back into my pc to check it now)

This came to a head last week, when I couldn't boot my pc, at the first go. It crashed, then rebooted into the BIOS. If i tried restarting the PC, it just went straight back inot the BIOS screen. It took a hard power off, then switch back on to get back into windows.

Now it boots to the Windows 10 'Diagnosing your pc' screen, which takes about 5-10 to get passed. Then it forwards to the recovery screen, none of which the options there do anything. Most just crash the pc and force it to reboot back to either the same diagnosing screen or the BIOS.

I tried inserting a windows disk to format the hard drive, but after the 'press any key to boot from disk' screen, I press a key and it comes up with a page stating that i can't access the disk, citing error 0xc000185 'a required drive isn't connected or cannot be accessed'

A friend who is good with computers said I probably need a new hard drive (the best advice he could give without testing it himself) so I did exactly that. Installed the new hard drive last night to exactly the same error.

Can anyone help, I will give as much info as I can get from the pc

Try to make a bootable USB drive instead and see if this works:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

Well as I swapped my old hard drive for a brand new, blank one last night, and I still got the same issues, wouldn't that remove the possibility of the hard drive being faulty or software issues?

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, I'm only an amateur learning the ropes, trying to get my head around the issue

I suggested the USB method because you seemed to be having problems getting the DVD to boot the windows disk. Perhaps I misunderstood.

No you're right, I do have that issue. It wont boot from the disk.

Windows installs on the hard drive though, correct?
If it was a windows issue, I'd assume you'd fix it by formatting and reinstalling Windows.
Failing that, a new hard drive should fix the issue (maybe even overkill, depending on the problem)
If the same issue crops up on a brand new blank hard drive (as you observed, I can't get windows to install on it), then I'd assume the issue is elsewhere, even if I can get windows to install on my hard drive via flash drive

Yes, you could have a motherboard issue.

At the moment we do not know if the hard disk is the problem but you suspect that it is. Did you replace the old hard drive with the new one or did you add the new one alongside?

The first problem will be trying to boot with either the DVD or USB media so that you can repair the old hard disk or install Windows on the new one.

I took the old one out and completely switched it for the new.

If the old hard drive was causing software issues, I wanted to get it as far away from my machine as possible, to verify the suspected hard drive issue :P

Then I put my windows 7 disk (the only one I have to hand at the moment) in said blank hard drive and still got the error, hence scratching that off the list as a solution.

My next thought was motherboard as well, even though it's only 1 - 1 1/2 years old

You will be much better downloading a new W10 installation disk rather than going back to W7. Because you already had W10 activated it will be registered as a digital entitlement on your Motherboard and so it will automatically activate again.

Of course you will need to do this on an other computer and create the media; either a DVD or USB drive with a matching W10 system. Select the 64bit HOME and the English International language.

I'll do that tonight when I go home. I'm using a pc in work at the moment, and once I go home, I wont have internet access until tomorrow. Unless I fix my pc tonight.
If that doesn't work, do you have any solutions/preparations I could be doing in the meantime?