What have I done?

[DXP55]

Gentlemen -The panic is over (as usual) Darkblade gave me the impetus to go and switch it on again.- Closed a few Microsoft boxes and bingo it's working again.
Next time I will wait a few hours to see if they rest themselves.


I have a backup PC with W10 on it

Turned it on the other day and had a error -Told me to put disc in and go to repair - Done this before over the years but for this I have it on memory stick -Well could I find it - I have the activation code.
Any way turning it on and off a few times seemed to fix it so thought I will download a ISO W10 file to memory stick for future use.

Got in a right mess and when closing a few pages I came to one from Microsoft asking for my 4 number code - What code ? - after messing I gave up -shutdown and started it up and on it came but no internet. Did try some repairs but no luck. Networking is beyond me - never been able to get my head around it.

So before I do myself in can you tell me if Microsoft has the ability to turn off my internet or is this pure coincidence.
I have given up for today and had a stamp around the house.

I love PC's when they work but when the don't I hate them.

 

[Semple]

If no network, sounds like it could have booted into safe mode - especially if you've been trying to start it up several times without success.

 

[darael]

I'd be tempted to nuke the current installation and start from fresh.

Boot from the Windows 10 USB stick. Once the installer has loaded press Shift + F10, then use Diskpart to clean the drive completely.

 

[DXP55]

I have lost my USB stick - that is what started all this. The PC works -just no internet.

 

[darkblade]

What's it say in the device manager? Is the network card working?

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Couple of ideas
I am terrible for finding my usb when I need it
So I have devised a couple of methods
So I don't need the usb

First one I made a partition put my windows install files in it
Made partition bootable
So can select to boot off that partition should I need to

2nd one I used an extra internal ssd
Put ventoy on it
Dragged my windows iso and all my recovery tools isos
Including ones where you can live boot windows or Linux onto it
Still kept the usb as a third backup lol
But now I don't need to go hunting for it
Plus the drives I am using are faster and have more space
For isos and tools

 

[DXP55]

Thanks for all the info - Please remember I am a old clockwork person and Mcnumpty2323 reply was way over my head - If it's basic I can do it but now today the PC has had another hiccup - Been on for 5-10 min then freezes up - blue screen comes up say there is a error and they are gathering info - but it can't because it's stopped working.

So now option 13.5 is sod it -get someone in to fix it. Even my W7 PC can't download a ISO with W10 on.

Going to turn house upside down tomorrow for memory stick.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Oh I am old and from the clockwork era too
But some of the very first stuff
That I taught myself was disaster recovery
Probably because to learn how windows worked I messed around
With things I shouldn't touch lol

Once everything is back up and running
Learning how to make an image backup is something
I would highly recommend
With the speed of today's drives I can literally restore the pc
Including drivers,software, settings etc in under 3 minutes
Only the really big stuff like modern games I store on other drives
But even those I backup to another drive
My backups have backups lol
But sometimes rather than figure out what's gone wrong
It's much quicker for me to just load an image backup
Than mess around with windows