Not too long ago, my Home windows PC stubbornly determined to refuse in addition up, and so I turned to the normal troubleshooting strategy that is served me nicely for a few many years: I typed a few of the signs into Google to see what got here up.
There is a wealth of recommendation on the market on the internet, thousands and thousands of discussion board and Reddit posts asking for PC assist, and thousands and thousands of posts attempting to supply options to the issue. Relying on what your concern is, it may possibly take a while to search out related info, however that is an strategy that usually will get outcomes.
Nonetheless, having tried a wide range of fixes urged by the net at giant, plus a couple of concepts of my very own, Home windows nonetheless wasn’t beginning up correctly. So, I made a decision to see if generative synthetic intelligence may assist—moreover writing poetry and discovering jobs, may it additionally inform me tips on how to get Home windows working once more?
We all know AI is skilled on huge swathes of the open net, together with assist boards and Reddit threads. However is it good sufficient to summarize and synthesize all of this information right into a type that is really useful for fixing pc issues?
The Home windows PC drawback
My Home windows PC is ready up with an SSD drive for the working system and for packages, and an HDD for video games and every little thing else, and it is on more often than not—so after we had an influence minimize in our native space, every little thing turned off immediately and with out warning. After that, the SSD with Home windows on would not boot up as regular.
On begin up, the PC shows a blue display screen with the message “UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME”, in order that’s our first clue there. Utilizing a Home windows 11 restoration USB drive, I can entry the Begin-up restore utility, however this merely shows the message that it “could not restore your PC.” The following choice is the command immediate, and from there I can see the information and folders on each my SSD and HDD drives—suggesting the information is there, however the drives cannot be booted up.
The Microsoft assist boards have been some assist.
Credit score: Lifehacker
Then I bought into recommendation from the net, together with the command immediate strains “sfc /scannow” to scan for and repair errors (this instructed me a repair had been made, nevertheless it did not make any distinction), and a sequence of “bootrec” instructions—”/fixmbr,” “/fixboot,” “/scanos,” and “/rebuildbcd,” which both all accomplished efficiently or instructed me entry to the SSD was denied. The outdated trustworthy “chkdsk” command would not run both, and threw up a write protected message too.
At this stage it appeared the facility minimize had tousled the SSD one way or the other and put it right into a write defend mode—one thing that appears pretty widespread. Whereas the recommendation connected to on-line posts that reference comparable points is generally simply to interchange the drive, on the subsequent boot I bought a special blue display screen message: “The Boot Configuration Knowledge in your PC is lacking or accommodates errors.”
There was additionally loads of helpful recommendation on Reddit.
Credit score: Lifehacker
The blue display screen really helpful reinstalling Home windows, in order all my information is backed up, earlier than I gave up on the SSD I attempted placing a recent copy of the working system in place, from an connected USB drive. Nonetheless, when it got here to the checklist of drives I used to be in a position to set up Home windows 11 on, the SSD wasn’t included.
So I used to be probably a borked SSD drive—despite the fact that the information on it are appropriately listed after I seen it via the command immediate interface. My final resort was the powers of generative AI, and whereas I wasn’t optimistic about my possibilities of efficiently fixing the issue at this level, I assumed it was price a attempt.
Looking for an answer
For the restore job, I referred to as on ChatGPT’s o1-preview mannequin: It’s, OpenAI says, the perfect mannequin for superior reasoning, and my feeling was I wanted all of the superior reasoning I may get. In the meanwhile, nevertheless, you want a ChatGPT Plus subscription to entry o1-preview, which is able to set you again $20 a month.
Having rigorously typed out the issue in as a lot element and with as a lot context as I may, I let ChatGPT get to work. In the event you’re utilizing the o1-preview mannequin, the responses take longer to point out up, however they arrive with messages on display screen like “figuring out attainable causes” and “diagnosing SSD well being.”
Assist me, ChatGPT o1-preview, you are my solely hope.
Credit score: Lifehacker
Because it generally does for testing functions, ChatGPT first confirmed me two responses and requested me to decide on the perfect—which was somewhat troublesome, as I did not know if both of them have been proper. The principle strategies I hadn’t tried earlier than have been to make use of the Diskpart utility (which could not see my SSD), and to take away Bitlocker encryption (which did not work both). I additionally bought some extra generic ideas, together with backing up information, testing the SSD in one other PC, and utilizing no matter diagnostic instruments the producer had offered.
The place AI bots actually have the benefit over a straight net search is within the two-way nature of them: I may ask follow-up questions, float concepts about what had gone incorrect, ask for clarification on any level, and tweak my prompts. More often than not, the responses made sense and have been legitimate (the “chkdsk” and “bootrec” instructions got here up once more), however ultimately even ChatGPT needed to admit defeat and acknowledge the “sturdy indicators” of {hardware} failure.
The responses, on the entire, have been detailed and made sense.
Credit score: Lifehacker
Having already established that I used to be most likely an unfixable SSD drawback and changing the entire drive, it could have been somewhat unfair to count on ChatGPT to work miracles. Nonetheless, it did appropriately attain the best conclusion (I believe), and even provided up some useful strategies for stopping the identical drawback taking place once more (primarily, an uninterruptible energy provide). It looks like a extra customized and useful troubleshooting choice, so long as its output could be trusted.
In fact, it is a pattern measurement of 1: I would must run a number of sorts of PC issues via ChatGPT to see if it was really helpful for pc restore. For now, it does not look as if Microsoft or Apple are assured sufficient within the tech to supply any sort of restore bot—maybe as a result of they do not wish to be accountable if a nasty AI thought results in important information loss. Whereas all the solutions I noticed made sense logically, nobody has but fastened the generative AI hallucination drawback.
The discussion on whether AI can effectively troubleshoot technical problems raises important questions about our dependency on technology. It would be fascinating to see further developments in this field as AI becomes more integrated into support systems.
I appreciate the exploration of using AI for tech issues, although it’s clear that there are limitations. The suggestion for an uninterruptible power supply seems practical and could help prevent such issues in the future.
It’s interesting to see how generative AI is being utilized in troubleshooting scenarios. While it may not provide a guaranteed fix, the ability to ask follow-up questions seems beneficial. I’m curious about the future of AI in tech support.
The author’s experience reflects common frustrations with computer failures. It’s intriguing how generative AI can assist, but I wonder if more traditional methods might still be more reliable in critical situations like this.
This article highlights a significant issue that many users face with PC troubleshooting. The reliance on online forums and AI showcases both the advantages and limitations of current technology in resolving hardware problems effectively.