[SOLVED] Your PC Ran Into a Problem and Needs to Restart

Having a blue screen like this pop up on your display at whatever stage for whatever reason is one of the worst nightmares of every Windows user. Not just because it immediately terminates all processes running on your PC and proceeds for a shutdown, but also because it clearly indicates some major malfunctioning of your Windows.

The error message that comes with such blue screens may vary depending on the cause. For this particular case, the message says “Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We’re just collecting some error info, and then we’ll restart for you”. Usually, this error message comes with a stop code 0xc000021a or an error code that says INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE, CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED or something similar.

You could see this error pop up during system start-up or during normal use. It could also appear after installing some applications or updates on your Windows, and sometimes it just shows when you connect some hardware components to your PC.

There are several possible reasons for this problem, ranging from software issues like registry changes or incompatible drivers to hardware issues like a loose hard disk or some other issues with a hardware component you have attached to your PC being incompatible or faulty.

In any case, following one or two of the four suggestions here should help you resolve this error and get your PC working fine again.

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SOLUTION 1: Check for Loose Hard Disk Connector

If you start experiencing this error after your laptop has gone through some major vibrations, either in transit or during other physical activities or some minor fall, then chances are your hard disk connector could have gotten loose, so you might want to check that first before going through the other suggestions.

This is even more likely if your error comes with the code that says INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. This suggests the possibility of a loose hard disk connector, so you should check that first. If you have other hardware components attached to your computer, you should also check to ensure they’re properly hooked up.

However, if your error comes with the stop code 0xc000021a then you should go ahead with the second fix.

SOLUTION 2: Run Windows Start-up Repair

Here we will be using the windows start-up repair tool to try to fix this problem automatically. For that, you will need a bootable USB with Windows 10 installation media.

  1. If you haven’t made a bootable USB Windows 10 installation already, you can follow the procedures I showed in this article to do that.
  2. Afterward, attach your Windows 10 USB stick and press the power button on your computer to start the process.
  3. Using the corresponding function keys or combination of escape and function key, select your boot device to boot from the USB.
  4. On this initial set-up page select Windows 10 64-bit or 32-bits depending on your platform and wait for the installation files to load.
  5. On the page that follows, click Next
  6. Then click on Repair your computer
  7. Here select Troubleshoot. 
  8. Then select Start-up repair
  9. Next, select the user account you want to fix if you have multiple user accounts.
  10. Enter the password and hit continue.
  11. It should start diagnosing your PC
  12. After some time, it should say Attempting some repairs.  

Note: This could take quite some time depending on what your computer is trying to fix, if this continues for an unusually long period of time, say 20 to 30 minutes, then you should consider stopping the process and trying some other fix. If this gets successful you should be able to log back into your computer.

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SOLUTION 3: Modify Your Registry Configuration

The third approach would be to use the registry backup command called regback. What this command does is to replace your registry configuration with the last known good configuration you have on your PC, so basically changing your registry configuration to the configuration of your most recent successful bootup. To do that you will need to go back to this advanced options screen again.

  1. Boot from your USB as shown in the previous fix until you get to this page.
  2. Here click on the Command prompt 
  3. It should open this command prompt terminal. Here, type in the letter of the disk drive where you installed your operating system, usually is the drive c, so here type c: and hit enter.
  4. Now type dir, and hit enter. Here you should find folders like Program Files and Program Files (x86), together with other folders like Users, and Windows. If you don’t see such folders, then type in another drive letter e.g. d: and hit enter, then run dir once again and see if it show this kind of folders. 
  5. Before running the regback command, I will back up the current registry in case I have some need to restore it afterward. For that, type the command cd \windows\system32\config, and hit enter.
  6. Then type MD backup and hit enter.
  7. Now type copy *.* backup and hit enter. Wait a bit for the files to be copied.
  8. After that, type in CD regback and hit enter.
  9. Then type the command copy *.* .. and hit enter
  10. Finally, type exit and hit enter to complete the process.

It should take you back to this page where you can choose to continue to start up your computer. From there it should boot all the way to the desktop with no more errors.

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SOLUTION 4: Uninstall Recently Installed Applications

If you started experiencing this blue screen error after installing or updating some application(s) on your Windows, then you should definitely consider uninstalling such application(s) and reporting the issue to the support team to know if they have some suggestions to help run their app on your PC without the blue screen error.

To do that go to your search and type “Add or remove programs”, then click on add or remove programs from the search results.

It should take you to this Apps and features page in the settings. Here you can choose to sort apps according to date of install in order to reveal the most recently installed apps.

To uninstall simply click on the app and select uninstall.

If the app refuses to uninstall in normal mode, then you should boot to safe mode and try to uninstall it from there.

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To do this, press the keyboard combination, “Ctrl+Alt+Delete” at the same time, it should bring you to the blue screen below with these options. On the bottom-right corner of the screen, you will see the power icon. Press and hold down the shift key and then select Restart from the power options, keep holding the shift key until you see the advanced startup option page.

Here you want to click on Troubleshoot.

It should bring you to this page. Here select Advanced options.

Then on the page that follows, click on Startup Settings.

On the page that follows, click on Restart.

Upon restarting, it should show the startup settings page again, this time with numbers next to each startup option. As shown here, 4 will boot you to safe mode, so by pressing f4 or just the number 4 on my keyboard, your PC should boot to safe mode.

While in safe mode, you can simply go to my Windows search and type add or remove programs, then click on the add or remove programs from the search result.

It should take you to the apps and features page.

Here you need to locate the application or applications that you recently installed and uninstall them. Then restart your computer and see if it boots up fine.

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Please share your comments, questions, and feedbacks in the comment section below. 

The following video demonstrates the solutions in this tutorial.