Windows 10 vanished abruptly.
Windows 10 vanished abruptly.
Hello everyone, my Windows 10 vanished from my PC and now I need to reinstall it. You remember that boot menu with the option to choose a boot drive? My computer worked normally until I left it at work, shut it down, and then came back later. During lunch, I turned it on again at home and the installation screen appeared. I’m fine installing Windows 10 again, but I only have one key for this PC—can I use it now? Also, I noticed something strange: during the setup, my keyboard and mouse stopped working completely. Even when I tried using a different device, they didn’t help. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
Yes, it's possible to reuse it. It's unclear what occurred, as a crash might have happened when you turned it off, but without evidence of tampering during your absence, it's difficult to confirm.
Thanks for sharing your details. I’ll attempt to use it again once the keyboard and mouse issues are resolved. It seems there might be some corruption—just to clarify, I’m on my own, so no one was interfering.
1) Often when your computer prompts for "select proper boot device," it signals a hard drive or SSD issue. Your BIOS tries to start from any available drives, but if no other OS drives exist or there are none, you'll encounter this message.
2) If the Windows 10 key is an OEM or retail key, you might reinstall without one and it will automatically reactivate on the same motherboard (OEM) or you can enter the key on new hardware (retail).
3) This situation may also arise from a failing boot drive or, less commonly, a corrupted motherboard or BIOS. To investigate, reset your motherboard’s CMOS as per the manual instructions.
4) If your keyboard and mouse freeze during installation, disconnect all internal hard drives temporarily for testing. Without them, the installer won’t show any drives, confirming a failing drive. If it still freezes, the problem likely lies with the motherboard, possibly due to poor thermal paste or a faulty power supply.