Cannot boot into Windows 8 after power off

What happened: I was powering down when I received a message about Windows updating, don't turn off system. Seconds later we lost our power due to a nearby accident. When I attempted to reboot, I received a message saying something about the registry having errors and not being able to open the OS.

When I got this laptop two years ago I made a recovery "disk" - well, on a USB stick. Unfortunately, I have no clue where it has disappeared and now I have no recovery media. My desktop runs Windows 7, so that's no help. To make things worse, I cannot locate the product key for the laptop. Every Dell I've owned (and there have been many) has the product key for Windows stamped on the bottom or side, but not this one. (Of-course!)

Final stupidity: [and this is even more embarrassing since I'm the one who lectures everyone on the importance of constant backups!] there are two recent files on the laptop that have not been backed up and I desperately need both of them!

So...am I out of luck? Have I royally screwed up here or is there some possible solution? Please keep in mind: my tech knowledge is limited. I know what I know because I've had to learn it and there are canyon size gaps in my knowledge of tech stuff. I may not understand the more complicated info - thanks for any help!

Hi Carney
To retrieve your two files, download one of Hyhi's bootable rescue disks. It is a portable version of Windows, once you shutdown there is no trace of it left. No files are written to your hard drive. Here is the download link.

Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

When the download is finished, burn the ISO file to a DVD or exract it to a flash drive. Boot from the DVD or flash drive and copy your files to a different flash drive or portable hard drive.

The iso file is an image file. That means there are files and folders inside the ISO or image. They are compressed inside the ISO to make to file smaller. When I say burn it to a DVD, I don't mean place the one ISO file on a DVD. I don't know what burning software you use but you have to let it know you want to burn an image. The burning program I use brings up a menu of what type of DVD I want to make, Data, Music, or Image. Look at the DVD when it is finished burning. You should see a number of files and folders on the DVD.

If you plan to use a flash drive, you have to prepare it to boot. If you don't know how to do that, let me know and I will try to walk you through it. Once the flash drive is ready, you have to get the files and folders onto the flash drive. This is usually done with a zip program. I will explain that later once the flash drive is ready.

Thanks!

Thank you, Trust Me, for the very detailed directions. I will save this file in case I need it in the future.

After hours of trying various approaches to resolve the problem - contacting Dell and Microsoft, posting here and one other site and trying to boot from a prepared flash drive - I abandoned hope and walked away. The next morning, I borrowed a friend's laptop to finish some important work. I then turned on the troubled laptop in order to get the service number for Dell. Instead of the registry error, cannot boot message, the system went through a very protracted boot and finally booted into the usual desktop page. Of-course, the first thing I did was a full backup and the second thing was to create a bootable flash drive and then a bootable DVD just to be doubly sure. The system now appears to be operating normally.

I'm not sure what happened to create the situation or what happened to make the computer suddenly work, but...after two days of getting the same registry file/cannot boot message, having the laptop operate normally is fantastic.

Thank you, again, for your help. At some point it may prove very useful.

I'm glad to hear it started working for you.