Advice needed: trying to boot up a Lenovo Thinktank PC

Over decades, through trial, error, books, magazines, help centres, I’ve got a share of PCs going. Following above instructions just ain’t working, just a load of clicking, black screen and shut downs.

You are talking to a class 1 Idiot here 😂

I know about cars, planes, engines, and will use an analogy, I can’t get my old-fashioned ICE car started, so I hear the solution is to tow-start it. Trouble is I don’t have a car to tow-start it. Or something like that.

Checking out You Tube videos on hard drive issues, quite frankly I don’t think the sounds coming from this are abnormal, just the normal sounds of the arm moving back and forth. So I don’t realistically imagine warranty will come into it. Will take another look at the whole thing later, and do a little more reading up through various sources on troubleshooting. Turns out not to be the actual spec I need for my purpose as it has only 4GB RAM, when I need 8-16GB; but I still wanted to actually get the machine going at least.

Maybe I’m getting somewhere through my own trial and error, nothing to do with online advice I came across on sites.

Nah, still stuck in a boot loop. I’ve thrown in the towel. Either I’m a complete numpty or something’s not quite right with some little thing in the hardware elements in the boot process. I think the drive mechanism itself is absolutely fine. I’m not about to get out my screwdriver set.

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Apologies, you are correct.

I had been checking the tiny writing on the box, which I can’t property see small written material on full background due to corneal scarring, and I just about read 4GB, but didn’t see the qty 3

It’s reading and sorting directories fine. I will go on the command prompt later when I can make space to put it all together again, I have looked up a few ideas.

i intend to perhaps eventually return it to my friend, who gave it in good faith, if I cannot indeed get it working at all. I would rather the original purchaser, who gave it to me would deal themselves with the warranty issue, if it applies (ie there is a fault ). However I want to fully explore all troubleshooting options first. Hence I’m taking time over it. I’m very mediocre at tech, but often find problems are what causes me to learn new stuff. Started out in 1993 on tech (actually before that too on first Macs and prior to that on early IBM PCs as well) when it was MS-DOS first, then we had GUI only after XP so I gave up on the inner workings and concentrated only on the outer workings, as it were. Things have become infinitely more complex since with networking, cloud, etc. I’m actually first time learning a heck of a lot of stuff on an online web development course atm with certification at the end. Assembling it in practicality is what counts. but unless you have years of consistent experience and knowledge you know very, very little and you are the idiot numpty as I describe myself. I’m far from beyond beyond learning, though.

In my last job, which involved enabled self-learning and information, I actually taught basic IT skills to people with little and none,

Now I laugh at some really complicated online advice re getting on command prompt. A lot of tech people like to over-complicate things in my experience, and are not always great at explaining stuff.

On the machine here I can access Command Prompt by tapping F2 repeatedly after pressing power-up button on hardware. It brings me to a screen where I can gain access to the coo and prompt and I’m in. Thereafter lies a vacuum as to what I might do and online help send to end at gaining access to the command prompt! Bellow demonstrates where I’ve been at.

At least this time I’ve avoided adding a stupid picture of RTE presenter Joe Duffy from another thread I am used to posting on and have moderated in the past 😱😂

BTW I really appreciate all the inputs to this thread.

I’ve looked at the Microsoft Community Forum about the X, and will try certain things suggested at the command prompt. The current layout of my room, and lack of sockets, means there is no dedicated space for the item so I have to assemble it all together every time on my coffee table.

The x is repair mode partition.