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As per the title - my neighbour has asked me to take a look at his laptop after a BSOD.

Windows 10 Home won't boot, only option is to boot from USB and do a complete reinstall of Windows.

However, when doing this I can't see the HDD in the list of drives to install on. I downloaded the compatible storage driver and attempted to load this in but apparently, it is not compatible with the system (despite using the device serial number to ensure I got the correct driver from the manufacturer website (Acer).

When I try to run the setup.cmd file for the driver in a command prompt, it is simply trying to run an EXE which clearly won't work without a GUI (hence not usable from command prompt).

The HDD is detected in the BIOS in HDD1 (strange that it isn't in HDD0 since that is empty and there is only 1 drive in the laptop), but not in diskpart (I can only see the two USB devices I have plugged in).

Any suggestions other than to take a brick to it?

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The hard drive has failed. Trying to install Windows 10 on this drive will not work. You said "when doing this I can't see the HDD in the list of drives to install on"

So you need to replace the drive.

If there is needed data on the old drive, remove it and contact a local recovery agency. That is the best approach for the old drive.

Get a new drive and begin the installation of Windows 10. Windows 10 will properly activate on the the new drive (otherwise same computer).

Good luck.

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  • The laptop - so the neighbour tells me - is 14 months old. HDD shouldn't be failing after 14 months of light use.
    – Luke B
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 21:41
  • A HDD can fail at any time. They can be new, middle aged, or old. That does not matter. Mean time to failure allows failure any time. If the drive was working, it would be recognized. I have a desktop with 2 drives (now large SSD). HDD 2 failed after a year (reccovered, replaced under warranty); replacement failed a year after that. HDD 1 never failed until I changed to SSD. Time to failure is not a good indicator at times.
    – anon
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 21:43
  • Surely if the drive had failed it wouldn't be recognised in BIOS?
    – Luke B
    Commented Jan 17, 2021 at 18:27
  • The drive could be recognized but still have damage preventing you from writing to it. That has happened before.
    – anon
    Commented Jan 17, 2021 at 18:29
  • Well I guess we'll never know since I can't get the Western Digital Diagnostic Tool to run via cmd line (all the bat script does is run an exe in GUI mode). Any idea how to do so?
    – Luke B
    Commented Jan 18, 2021 at 9:20

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