Hi,
Did you make the attempt to test your Hard Drive yet? You didn't say. If you didn't, you could be chasing dragons so-to-speak for days or weeks or longer trying to make a software repair on laptop with a failed hard drive. You might wish to re-read my
Post #9; item #2. If that laptop is older than 2 years old, it's
HIGHLY likely that the hard drive has failed.
Henk and I have both recommended that you test your Hard Drive which it sounds like you have never done before, otherwise you would have replied back with your test result. That and the question about Seagate sending you a SeaTools disc. They don't do that anymore; you can buy it on a USB stick. But, it's quite easy to download it to a $10 USB stick yourself. Here are instructions for doing that:
How To Create Bootable USB Disk For Seagate SeaTools For DOS - Computer Forums
Once you have your bootable Seatools either on USB stick or DVD disc, here's a very helpful video on how to use the Seatools program to run the 2 tests you need to test your drive to see if it's Ok or not:
how to use a seatools for dos - Bing video
It's a bit long; over 9 min. but worth watching to the end as the presenter does a very good job of covering how to use the program and it's options.
Of course, this is your friend's laptop, not yours but in either case it's always prudent to backup all your data and any of your friend's data that happens to still be on the laptop *if applicable* to external media, that's the big
CAUTION I had in
RED in Post #9 above. This way, if you accidentally erase the drive which does occasionally happen with first time Seatools users, and you have an "oops" moment, your data *and perhaps your friend's data as well* will not be permanently lost!
Make sure to run
BOTH the short and long tests on your friend's laptop hard drive. If Seatools returns errors on either test or both tests, you drive has failed and must be replaced!
You can choose whether to do this for your friend, or simply tell them about it and let them do it or pay to have a licensed Tech do for them.
The thing you have to realize is, that trying the suggested software fixes will never solve your problem if the hard drive has failed.
As I always say to people who are home users,
"There is no software on the planet that can fix broken hardware!".
If you do certify the drive as Ok by having it pass both Seatools tests, you can then try the suggested fixes such as creating a new profile and copying all the stuff from your bad profile over to the new profile. This only works about half the time or less, especially on computers that are 5 years older or more. That's because 90% of the time the hard drives have failed in those computers, and mimic a software failure *a corrupted profile or one that locks out it's owner*! If that fix or neemo's other fixes fail, at least you know that your hard drive is Ok, and you can apply more agreessive software repairs such as a W10 Reset or W10 Reinstallation from Factory Recovery Media. Steps for doing this are included in my free TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE available here: Sound Problems
Well, you now have everything you need to solve your friend's laptop problem. If you decide to follow all our suggestions and attempt the repair yourself, remember if you get stuck along the way, post your questions back here to this thread; we are here 24x7x365.
Best of luck,
<<<BBJ>>>