PANICKED! My computer has crashed and I need a recovery disk

[KathiM2021]

My PC won't reboot and I found a disk that was labeled "recovery disk" and put it in and rebooted the PC. Now it boots up with black screen with the HP logo, then just goes dark and that's it. I can hear it processing, but it never does anything. I am extremely panicked here because I can't find a recovery disk anywhere for it and I can't lose all of my files! What do I do? Where can I get one" And if I do get one and use it...will it erase my files? I am so stressed out and worried and I appreciate any help anyone can gve me!!! It is an HP Slim 290-a0020, S/N 8CG82056YY. Please help!

[WAWood]

@KathiM2021 

It's NOT a good idea to run any Recovery Disk in the blind.  Some of these will reformat your drive and that will erase EVERYTHING on the PC in the process!

What you need to focus on at present is retrieving your files from the drive -- and you will need another working PC and a couple of USB sticks to do that.  Follow the instructions below ...

So, what I propose is booting your PC from a USB stick containing a different Windows environment, plugging in a USB stick (once that it running), and using a file explorer app to copy the files you need to save from the SSD to the USB stick.

What MIGHT work is the following:
1) On a working PC, use this link to download and install a free copy of Macrium Reflect: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
2) Once that is installed, use the option to create a Boot USB stick (Other Tasks --> Create Rescue Media). This creates a bootable USB stick that runs a version of Windows.
3) Boot the PC from that USB stick. To do this, try pressing F9 repeatedly while booting to get a boot drive menu, or press the Esc key repeatedly while booting to get an HP utilities menu, and select the boot menu from that
4) Be patient ... as booting from a USB stick is really, really slow
5) Once in the MR recovery environment, you can then remove the USB stick.
6) Insert a USB stick for holding data and, down at the bottom left of the windows screen are some icons. Select the one on the right to open a form of File Explorer.
7) Use the File Explorer app to locate the files you need and copy them to the USB stick.

Good Luck

[KathiM2021]

I know...I would have never done something that stupid but I was sure that was the recovery disk I had made IF I even made one. 😞

Thank you SO much...I'm going to try your suggestion this morning and cross my fingers. I will defiitley let you know howit works out. <<crosses fingers>>

[KathiM2021]

It turns out that I have only one USB stick and no way to go to thes tore toget any others today, but I do have a Passport external HD with all of the files I had backed up when I got the PC I presently have. I lent that old PC to a friend who had given it back to me a few months ago, so, I am transferring all of the files from the Passport to that old PC (which is the one I am going to use to create the USB boot stick).

My question is, will I be able to use the external hard drive to get the data from the new PC in place of USB sticks? I know it's a probably a dumb question, but I just want to be sure. It's going to take 5-1/2 hours to put all of the data onto the old PC from the Passport so I figured it would be better than trying to use a bunch of USB sticks. Or, am I wrong? I feel so stuoid not backing up anything since I got thenew PC. Someone told me that all of my files should be on the "Cloud" but I don'tthink I've everused it because I know nothing about it.

I sure hope this works and, if so, you will be my new PC guru hero! Wish me luck....

[WAWood]

@KathiM2021 

Probably -- but I hesitate to say that because in many cases, when folks use Passport drives, they install special software that came with the drive to encrypt the contents.  If you have done this, the drive won't work with any PC other than the first one you used it with.