But how do you get there when Windows won't load?
Then I remembered:
I panicked. I didn't have a recovery USB. I didn't have a second computer. I had my phone, a cold sweat, and a growing sense of doom. windows 11 advanced startup from boot
I pressed the power button. The Lenovo logo appeared. Then—nothing. Just a spinning circle of dots that looped for ten minutes. Windows 11 was stuck in a boot loop, somewhere between "Just a moment" and "Your PC ran into a problem." But how do you get there when Windows won't load
Not a graceful shutdown. Not a blue screen. Just… black. I didn't have a second computer
I forced the power off three times—holding the button until the laptop gasped and died, then restarting. On the third failure, something magical happened. Instead of the spinning dots, I saw a new screen: