We got home from being away and my wife discovered a problem with her desktop. She rarely shuts it down despite my nagging. It is powered by a UPS.

However we also discovered the microwave and stove clocks were showing the incorrect time which indicated there had been an interruption to the power.

We suspect whatever affected the microwave and stove also affected the PC.

When she tried to re boot it the first time she said there was a message about the BIOS but she cannot remember the wording.

Now when rebooting it fails to boot properly and offers either "Start Up Repair (recommended) or Start Windows Normally".

I've tried the repair option going down the Restore option path using different restore points, all to no avail.

During the boot process the Starting Windows splash screen is present for a few moments before a very short blue screen of death. The Technical Information has one line of info starting with STOP: 0X0000007B followed by what looks like a lot of HEX code.

I decided it was an opportunity of upgrade to Win 10, only issue is the only option to do this without an operating OS means losing files/data which I'd prefer to avoid. I'd rather go the normal upgrade route.

What are my best options?

• Should I try updating the BIOS based on the original message? There are warnings about messing with the BIOS but how risky is it really?
• I've also read that pulling out the motherboard battery will reset the BIOS. Is removing that battery an option worth trying?
• What other repair/restore options should I consider?

TIA