Computer Troubles

[Maddie]

I've been googling things to no avail for two days and at this point I'm about to lose my mind. Two nights ago I was innocently Tumbling an trying to get on Netflix, and I noticed that my internet was being insanely slow. Everything was getting frozen so I just held down the power button to cut my computer off, and I was just going to turn it back on because it in't seem like there was anything overly wrong with it. Unusual for this computer, but everything freezes up sometimes.

So I go to turn it back on and it's being slow, and then for a split second it gives me a message basically saying that my PC had a problem and I need to restart. I'm not sure exactly what it says because it flashes so quickly I can't read it before it goes away. So then it restarts and I get this weird and highly concerning error message:

"Recovery
Your PC couldn't start properly
A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed.
Error Code: 0xc000000e
You'll need to use the recovery tools on your installation media. If you don't have any installation media (like a disc or a USB device), contact your system administrator or PC manufacturer."

I've tried a bunch of different options, yesterday I managed to get on my sister's computer (we have the same one) and make a recovery thing on one of my flash drives so I can boot to that and get some options. I tried to do the repair options but those didn't work so I figured it's either system restore, or totally reimage/reset it. Naturally, for some reason nowadays computers don't automatically create any restore points or system images so those options were out and I was like "okay, life sucks, time to factory reset" but then when I went to start that process...it said my recovery media wasn't valid. The recovery media that I had booted to multiple times.

So I'm completely at a loss and probably at a disadvantage because this computer isn't just a standard computer, my grandpa has a friend who buys laptops at Walmart and makes them fancier so I don't know what he's done to the OS or anything. I just know that currently it has Windows 8 and it's upgraded from 4 to 8 GB of RAM an I have a solid state hard drive although I'm not sure how much space is on that.

Currently attempting to take out the battery for a few minutes and then put it back in, although I'm skeptical. So yeah. Any idea what I can do to fix this?

[Aly]

Couple things:
1) make sure you don't have any extra stuff plugged in like USBs or phones to your computer when starting or trying to factory reset. Sometimes when trying to reset, the USB tries to take over and odd stuff happens.
2) make sure your fan is never blocked. It's possible something overheated somewhere inside your laptop. I suggest finding a computer savvy person to open it up and make sure it's all good and nothing melted.
3) there is a way to reset the way you're talking about, a semi-restore, but I can't quite remember how. I'll ask my dad tomorrow.

Based on what you're describing it sounds like a hard drive thing but it's hard to tell without me physically trouble shooting it.

To be clear, you cant log in regularly anymore, correct?

[Maddie]

I can't even go in through Safe Mode. I can get to the error message, or if I boot through my recovery USB I can get to boot options and the recovery options that I tried, but I can't log in or anything.

I talked to a friend about it at school today and she said it sounded like a hardware problem but then when I mentioned that it seemed like a lot of people were getting it after updating to a newer OS or installing a second one, and I really don't know what changes my grandpa's friend made since he just buys these things from Walmart and messes with them but as far as I know it originally had Windows 8 on it, and that's what I'm using now.

[Aly]

So i spoke to my dad and he saaaaiiidd...

There's a way to get to the recovery partition. In your manual there's a key combination to get to the recovery screen when you first start your comp. It'll reinstall the OSand keep your data. If you ddon't have manual you can Google it for your specific computer.

[Maddie]

Excellent excellent. Gloria's been telling me F11 but I can't get that to work so I'll check what the exact model is and try that.

[Aly]

Let us know how it goes!

[Maddie]

So, I attempted, but I think it was something I'd tried before that didn't work. Honestly it's really difficult for me to find a manual or anything online and at this point I'm just gonna let my grandpa's friend look at it again, but I might see if we can open it up and at least look inside for a minute before we do that, and thank you for the advice. <3