Credit: Ascannio/Shutterstock

No longer too long ago, my Windows PC stubbornly determined to refuse apart from up, and so I grew to alter into to the atypical troubleshooting device that is served me nicely for a number of decades: I typed a number of of the signs into Google to glance what came up.

There is a wealth of recommendation accessible on the procure, hundreds of thousands of forum and Reddit posts asking for PC abet, and hundreds of thousands of posts searching for to present choices to the matter. Looking on what your challenge is, it must seize a while to fetch relevant files, but here is an device that in most cases gets outcomes.

Alternatively, having tried a fluctuate of fixes instructed by the procure at trim, plus a number of ideas of my comprise, Windows mild wasn’t beginning properly. So, I determined to glance if generative artificial intelligence could well well also support—apart from writing poetry and finding jobscould well well also it additionally repeat me tricks on how to win Windows working again?

We know AI is trained on astronomical swathes of the originate net, including support boards and Reddit threads. But is it neat sufficient to summarize and synthesize all of this files real into a create that is undoubtedly helpful for solving computer concerns?

The Windows PC field

My Windows PC is determined up with an SSD drive for the working system and for functions, and an HDD for games and all the issues else, and it be on as a rule—so after we had a vitality reduce in our local residing, all the issues grew to alter into off straight away and all of sudden. After that, the SSD with Windows on wouldn’t boot up as regular.

On launch up, the PC shows a blue show with the message “UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME”so as that is our first clue there. The use of a Windows 11 recovery USB drive, I’m in a residing to win admission to the Commence-up restore utility, but this merely shows the message that it “couldn’t repair your PC.” The next option is the present instructed, and from there I will explore the files and folders on both my SSD and HDD drives—suggesting the files is there, however the drives can’t be booted up.

The Microsoft support boards were some abet. Credit: Lifehacker

Then I got into advice from the procure, including the present instructed lines “sfc /scannow” to scan for and fix errors (this told me a fix had been made, but it undoubtedly didn’t make any distinction), and a sequence of “bootrec” instructions—”/fixmbr,” “/fixboot,” “/scanos,” and “/rebuildbcd,” which either all completed successfully or told me win admission to to the SSD modified into once denied. The ragged devoted “chkdsk” present wouldn’t shuffle either, and threw up a write stable message too.

At this stage it looked the vitality reduce had messed up the SSD one way or the opposite and achieve it real into a write supply protection to mode—something that appears rather favorite. While the advice attached to on-line posts that reference same components is mostly merely to interchange the drive, on the next boot I got a determined blue show message: “The Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors.”

There modified into once additionally a good deal of valuable advice on Reddit. Credit: Lifehacker

The blue show instructed reinstalling Windows, in characterize all my files is backed up, earlier than I gave up on the SSD I tried hanging a unique reproduction of the working system in residing, from an attached USB drive. Alternatively, when it came to the list of drives I modified into once in a residing to set up Windows 11 on, the SSD wasn’t integrated.

So I modified into once most likely a borked SSD drive—even supposing the files on it are properly listed when I viewed it throughout the present instructed interface. My closing resort modified into once the powers of generative AI, and while I wasn’t optimistic about my possibilities of successfully fixing the matter at this level, I believed it modified into once worth a strive.

Looking out out a resolution

For the restore job, I called on ChatGPT’s o1-preview mannequin: It is, OpenAI says, doubtlessly the most easy mannequin for superior reasoningand my feeling modified into when I needed all of the superior reasoning I could well well also win. In the intervening time, nonetheless, you desire a ChatGPT Plus subscription to win admission to o1-preview, that could well well also place you attend $20 a month.

Having fastidiously typed out the matter in as great detail and with as great context as I could well well also, I let ChatGPT win to work. When you are the use of the o1-preview mannequin, the responses seize longer to expose up, but they arrive with messages on show like “identifying possible causes” and “diagnosing SSD health.”

Again me, ChatGPT o1-preview, you are my easiest hope. Credit: Lifehacker

As it every every so often does for testing functions, ChatGPT first showed me two responses and asked me to resolve doubtlessly the most easy—which modified into once a tiny bit complicated, as I didn’t know if either of them were merely. The most important ideas I hadn’t tried earlier than were to use the Diskpart utility (which could well well not explore my SSD), and to get rid of Bitlocker encryption (which didn’t work either). I additionally got some more generic tricks, including backing up files, testing the SSD in one more PC, and the use of whatever diagnostic tools the manufacturer had equipped.

Where AI bots undoubtedly bear the profit over a straight net search is in the 2-device nature of them: I could well well also ask note-up questions, float ideas about what had gone bad, ask for clarification on any level, and tweak my prompts. Extra in most cases than not, the responses made sense and were reliable (the “chkdsk” and “bootrec” instructions came up again), but in the tip even ChatGPT had to admit defeat and acknowledge the “strong indicators” of hardware failure.

The responses, on the total, were detailed and made sense. Credit: Lifehacker

Having already established that I modified into once doubtlessly an unfixable SSD field and replacing the total drive, it would possibly maybe maybe most likely well well also bear been a tiny bit unfair to ask ChatGPT to work miracles. Alternatively, it did properly reach the merely conclusion (I mediate), and even offered up some helpful ideas for stopping the same field occurring again (basically, an uninterruptible vitality present). It sounds like a more personalized and helpful troubleshooting option, so long as its output is also relied on.

Needless to teach, here is a pattern measurement of 1: I could well well also want to shuffle plenty of sorts of PC concerns through ChatGPT to glance if it modified into once undoubtedly valuable for computer restore. For now, it doesn’t glance as though Microsoft or Apple are confident sufficient in the tech to present to any extent additional or less restore bot—maybe due to they originate not want to be guilty if a bad AI thought ends in important files loss. While the total solutions I saw made sense logically, nobody has but fastened the generative AI hallucination field.