Computer Help and Support

Unfortunately, I have now bricked the computer! Arrrgh.

I thought I had repaired the hard drive (I had some indications that a partition issue was causing Windows not to update) and went ahead and installed the latest Windows 10 update that would no longer make the build obsolete. I let it run overnight and came back tof find a black screen loop with the Dell logo where it is saying attempting to uninstall the update and then immediately restarts again. It is now doing this infinitely.

Now, I cannot start in safe mode, and keys like F8, F12 etc don't get me anything except the BIOS set up. If I press and release the power button three times, I get a Dell test mode that says all the hardware is fine, but won't let me into the system to perform a Windows repair.

And to compound my stupidity, I didn't back up the files! I would like to at least get in there to see what's there and see if I can save to another medium before doing a complete Windows 10 reinstall. If I do the reinstall, I will reformat the drive (which is an SSD) as I may have had partition problems. But, then I'll lose everything that's on there.

Question: given these circumstances, how do I try to fix this. Should I make a boot Windows 10 disk on a memory stick? If that works, will I be able to get onto the PC's Windows and try to do a repair?

Folks, please be careful when attempting stuff like this. I should have left well enough alone or at least backed up before doing all this.

HELP!!!!?!!! TIA