Freezing on boot

[Liliweiss]

My laptop has a frequent tendency of completely freezing and stopping my requiring me to force shutdown but I decided to download a game that took up the like 48gbs of my storage leaving me with close to zero storage left. And while was watching a video and going through Google it froze on me making me force restart it. But for the first time I've seen it cant make it past the hp logo booting sequence without freezing. And if I try shutting it down again it gives me an attempting to repair dialogue and getting the same result. After a few attempts of brute forcing the sequence I got a blue screen saying unfixable error. I am simply at a loss of what to do right now so early in the morning. Sorry for terrible English but it's late for my schedule and I'm just going to sleep on it, Please help me

[idj_779]

Hi Liliweiss,

Welcome to the HP Community! I am a new volunteer here participating in the HP Solve-a-thon. Do not worry about your English at all, it is perfectly clear! I understand how stressful it is to wake up to a broken laptop, but we can definitely get this sorted out.

The root cause of this specific freeze and the blue screen is exactly what you suspected: you completely ran out of storage space. Windows requires a certain amount of empty hard drive space (usually around 10-15%) just to function. It uses this empty space as "virtual memory" to swap temporary files while it boots up and runs programs. When you downloaded that 48GB game and brought your storage down to zero, Windows literally suffocated. Now, when you try to turn it on, the operating system does not have enough empty space to load the startup files, causing it to freeze at the HP logo and fail the auto-repair.

To fix this, we need to boot the computer into "Safe Mode" so you can delete that game and let Windows breathe again. Here is exactly how to do it:

Step 1: Force the Advanced Startup Menu

Since you cannot get past the HP logo, we have to interrupt the boot process three times in a row to trigger the Windows Recovery Environment.

• Press the power button to turn on the laptop.

• As soon as you see the HP logo appear, press and hold the power button down for 5-10 seconds until the laptop completely shuts off.

• Repeat this exact process two more times (Turn on -> see logo -> hold power to force off).

• On the fourth time, turn it on and let it run. You should see a message saying "Preparing Automatic Repair," followed by a blue screen with a button that says Advanced Options. Click that button.

Step 2: Boot into Safe Mode

Safe Mode loads a very basic version of Windows that requires much less storage space to run, which should allow you to get past the freezing logo.

• On the blue screen, click Troubleshoot.

• Click Advanced options.

• Click Startup Settings.

• Click the Restart button in the bottom right corner.

• When the laptop restarts, you will see a list of numbered options. Press the number 4 (or F4) on your keyboard to select Enable Safe Mode.

Step 3: Delete the Game

Once you log into Safe Mode, your screen will look a bit weird and low-resolution—this is totally normal!

• Open your Start Menu, go to Settings, and click on Apps (or Apps & Features).

• Find the 48GB game you just downloaded, click on it, and select Uninstall.

• Alternatively, open your File Explorer and manually delete the game files, then right-click your Recycle Bin on the desktop and click Empty Recycle Bin. (If you don't empty the bin, the space isn't actually freed up!).

Once you have deleted the game and freed up at least 15-20GB of space, restart your laptop normally. It should boot right past the HP logo without any issues.

Get some rest, and let me know if this works when you wake up!

Thank you for being a part of the HP Community!

I am an independent tech enthusiast and volunteer participating in the HP Solve-a-thon, not an HP employee.

If my steps helped you out, please click the Thumbs Up/Yes button below. If this completely resolved your issue, please click Accept as Solution so other users can easily find the answer!

[Liliweiss]

Ok ive done this and gotten to the automatic repair but it's so bad it can't get past this screen without the little rotating dots freezing and giving me the same treatment