Peculiar issue with Laptop

[VeeraRaghav]

Good morning,

I have a peculiar issue with my Laptop running windows 11 (Model- HP15s-gr0012AU). The laptop was working fine for last 3 months. Suddenly a week back I had issues with softwares getting deleted automatically. The user desktops gets deleted and is replaced with black screen and only recycle - bin icon. My explorer window doesnt open. Installed programs like word, does'nt seem to open. I get a error message saying "C:\USERS\k7\Downloads is unavailable". The same happens with "DESKtop" , "Documents", "Pictures" etc available under the "THIS PC"

HP support asked me to reinstall the operating system to Factory settings. I downloaded 32GB usb  made it bootable with the HP cloud recovery software. I have tried 3 times this resetting. Each time, the system seems to work fine for one day. The trouble starts from the next day. 

I have tried installing windows 10 also. With windows 10, i face the same issue. I am not able to explain to the online customer service in India to the extend they can understand. I feel frustrated and curse myself for buying HP laptop. THe customer service people ask me to contact Microsoft. The laptop is still under waranty and such an callous reply from customer service is regrettable. 

Can some experts help me with this Issue. Is it OS issue/Hardware Issue/BIOS or Boot Virus by anychance??

Thanks

Veera

[VH2000]

The Symptoms you describe are typical for damaged user-profiles and are MS-Issues.
Usually you can open the TaskManager and when that is possible you will at least be able to get acces to your files.
So right now I just recommend you to make a clean installation, using the last (!) "Media Creation Tool" from MS. (21H2)
During Setup make sure that you delete all partitions on the disk. At the same installation-page you find a button "new" (yellow star)
Klick that and determine the size of your C-Partition in MB. Usually a size of 120 GB is more than enough. That means that you type in (120 x 1024 = 122880).
(That means that your your Recovery-Partition will be placed at the right place! That is important.) Then continue your setup.
Disconnect from internet and create a local account. (Select: I have no internet) (Only possible with WIN10)
When you are ready you connect to internet and run the last Windows-Update and get your drivers.
In diskmanagement you can create your D-Partition for your personal files. That has to be done in 2 steps. That means that all your files are safe when you have a crash the next time. 

[VeeraRaghav]

Hi, Thanks for your reply to my problem. 

I have done windows 10 installation again. I went to Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com) I used the "Create Windows 10 installation media"  to make a bootable USB. 

I made a fresh installation on my SSD drive - 250 GB (I completely formatted this). Apart from this I have a HDD drive which I did not format. 

I made 150 GB for installation of the Win OS. The rest GB remains unused. 

I have made user accounts without connecting to the internet. 

After installation I have updated the Win10. I don't have a option for doing selective update. It just updates all.

After doing all this, I still face the same issues. 

I have a temporary fix which I found online but I am forced to do this frequently and it is frustating.  THe temporary fix is as below 

"When ever my desktop goes blank - with all the shortcuts missing and I am getting error in trying to access Documents, Pictures, Music etc folders" - I open explorer. I go to the "This Pc". I right click "Desktop>Properties>Location" and "Find Target" - This gives me back the access. The same thing I repeat for "Documents", "Downloads", "Music", "Pictures", "Videos". 

After doing this, once i Log out and log in - My desktop is back to the original form. - Very lousy solution. 

What bothers me is, I had a perfectly working Laptop for the last 3 months. All this issue i face only for the last 3 weeks. 

HP is not giving me thier Factory reset software (Cloud recovery) having windows 10. This would help me in reseting the PC to the state as I bought it. Unfortunately the force customers with Windows 11 - WOnder how they bet on a lously, bug filled, OS.

[VeeraRaghav]

If somebody could help me write a script to do the temporary fix i mentioned in previous reply, I can make it run during startup to fix this issue.

[VH2000]

Use your HDD and create a new partition (D:\) using diskmanagement
Then open the explorer and go to C:\Users\Name

and rightclick on Documents>Properties>Location(Path)
and fill out:
D:\Name\Documents and click OK (Name=your user name)

Repeat that for Downloads, Pictures, etc.
That moves your files to a separate partition

Reboot and check

You will not loose any data if your system crashes!

You can check the Registry as well 

\HKEY_CURRENT_USER and search for the username to check if the FilePath entries are correct

[VeeraRaghav]

Hi, Sorry for posting after some time. I did try doing what you suggested. But all this remains temporary. I get back the problem again. 

I tried a totally different solution. I completely removed Windows OS and installed Linux. I had my zorinOS (linux) installed on the SSD - where windows was before. Everything worked fine for the first 2 days. On the 3 day I got while booting the below error

"Please install an operating system on your hard disk

Hard disk (3FO)"  message.

What i don't understand is, how this happened as I had a working OS. I thought it was WIndows problem, but linux is also having this issue. I went into resuce mode to find my linux related files mostly empty even though some folder structure was retained. 

I rebuilt by GRUB loader to rescure, but had to again reinstall the OS. 

Does this indicate hardware related problem that is corrupting my OS installations? or Is this due to some VIrus or Malware in the MBR. Can you help me on this? How to find if my MBR/Bootloader/BIOS is infected or not?

Thanks

[VH2000]

I don't believe in a virus, because when installing LINUX you have a different file system and you erase the disk. So I guess it's a problem with your SSD. 

I am not so familar with LINUX. In Windows I would create a separate bootloader on a USB-Flash drive and launch the bootloader from there. You still have the HDD and so you could watch/compare the behavior when running the OS from there.