HP Mini booting problem

[applevictim]

I have an HP Mini 210 Notebook which is rarely used (two or three times a month) and is now failing to boot up.

It is fully charged.  When I turn it on the screen turn on and displays an underscore in the top left hand corner but nothing else.  I have tried booting it into BIOS but it will not boot.  It looks as though Windows 10 start up is damaged somehow.  Most of the online advice suggests booting into BIOS to do a factory reset, but I cant even do that.

Windows 10 was installed as an update from Win7 when it became available and there were no problems with that.

Any suggestions?

[WAWood]

@applevictim 

The flashing cursor is an indication that the Windows filesystem has been corrupted so badly that even the boot loader won't run enough to generate error messages.  Essentially, Windows is unusable in the current state and needs to be completely reinstalled.

You won't be able to do a built-in restore because the in-place upgrade from Win7 to Win10 corrupted the recovery files such that a restore now will not work.

Since your PC can not successfully do an internal factory reset, your only ways to accomplish this are the following:
- Factory reset using external HP image you make
- Factory reset using external HP image you buy

Each of these is discussed in some detail below ...

---------- Factory reset using external HP image you make ----------
HP provides a Cloud Recovery tool that you can use, together with a 32GB USB stick, to create your on HP reset media.

Here is the link: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06162205

This works the same as the factory reset described above.

---------- Factory reset using external HP image you buy ----------
For those PCs not supported by the Cloud Recovery, in some cases, HP offers Recover Media for sale. This can not be downloaded; instead, it must be ordered from HP.

HP Recovery Media is a set of DVDs and a CD, or USB stick, that will erase the hard drive (removing all data, settings, and applications, reinstall the original OS, drivers, and some HP Utilities.

In some cases, you may be able to order a USB stick instead of disks.

You can look online for Recovery Media starting with the linked paged: http://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers

Once there, input your Product name or number. On your Software and Drivers Download page, select your Operating System and and Version. Click &quot;Update&quot;.<br><br>If HP Recovery Media is available for your machine, down near the bottom of the page, you will see an entry for Order Recovery Media-CD/DVD/USB. Click the &quot;+&quot; symbol to expand that entry and click on Order Media for details.

Or, if you prefer, you can do the same by contacting HP Customer Support.

HP contact info: https://support.hp.com/us-en/contact-hp?openCLC=true

If HP no longer carries the media you need, another site you should check for HP Recovery Media is: http://www.computersurgeons.com/

These work the same as the factory reset described above.

[applevictim]

This doesn’t sound good.  The cursor isn’t flashing, but you’re probably right.  How does the software get so corrupt it doesn’t start?

as the HP Mini is older than 2016 it has no HP support.  The rescue software is not available for older devices.  So I either give it to land fill or instal Linux on it!  Crazy!

is it possible to get to the BIOS pages from startup?  I can then make an external DVD disk reinstall the software?