Please HELP! Changed HP laptop active partition W10 now can't boot


  1. droidly
    Posts : 33
    Windows 10 Pro x64
       New #1

    Please HELP! Changed HP laptop active partition W10 now can't boot


    Hello,

    The problem is also more complicated because the laptop cannot see any bootable USB sticks so I can't access anything except the Bios.

    The problem is self created. I was trying to clean up a multi partitioned drive and then merging the partitions. There were 4 partitions in this order.
    1. 199 mb HP_tools (no drive letter)
    2. c: drive 500+ GB (active, mbr, etc...)
    3. 16 gb (hp recovery partition)
    4. 110 mb (no drive letter etc...)

    I reformatted number 4 then adsorbed the free space into 3 as it was the only option. Then I noticed partition 1 was now active not 2 with my c: drive and os etc... so I made c drive active. On the next reboot the problem started.

    I don't know what to do. I looked through the bios and I can't enable usb as a bootable device. It is not listed or allowed. If I had a bootable cd or dvd what would be the steps to repair the boot problems?

    Thanks, Droid
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  3. dalchina
    Posts : 42,943
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       New #2

    Hi, You have probably created big problem by merging the unlettered partition - this was most probably the EFI partition which Windows requires to boot.

    Note which partition should be active (EFI example)
    Please HELP! Changed HP laptop active partition W10 now can't boot-1.jpg


    Win 10 (EFI boot) uses
    - a 100 Mb Fat 32 EFI partition
    - a 16Mb System partition (not visible by design in Disk Management
    - a 450Mb Recovery partition
    - 'C:' - Windows.

    Legacy boot partitions are fewer.

    You may need to create some unallocated space on your drive if no space remains for needed partitions.

    You can try Macrium Reflect (free), and run its Fix Boot utility from its bootable CD/DVD/drive.

    Or if you prefer, get Kyhi's very useful bootable DVD/drive from the top of the Software and Apps section here and run Macrium from that.

    If you can access the BIOS you should be able to set it up to boot from a USB drive- boot order.
    Some PCs require you to press a certain key to access a boot selection menu.

    Worst case, if you haven't followed our often and strongly urged recommendations to use disk imaging routinely (so you can recover from - unbootable PC - user error - ransomware - failed disk etc etc quite quickly and without technical help), then:

    Image C: to an external disk
    Format your system disk
    Clean install Windows
    Restore your image of C: in place of the newly created Windows partition.
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  4. droidly
    Posts : 33
    Windows 10 Pro x64
    Thread Starter
       New #3

    Hi Dalchina, thank you for the reply and help. I will try the boot disk and see if I can resolve the issue. I will keep you posted on my progress or lack thereof. Thanks again, Droidly
      My Computer
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