Why won't my Asus Q504U go past ASUS IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE upon star

Windows looks for startup media (HDD, SSD, USB drive) when it boot. If it finds it but can’t read it it just hangs.

I suspect your HDD failed. How to fix? Depends. I would first create a Linux USB boot drive, then start the laptop and get into BIOS. Set boot to USB and see if you can boot to USB. You may have to remove the HDD since it may still try to read it and hang. If you can boot into Linux, then your laptop is OK and u have an HDD failure. Depending on how u have backed up your system, it could be a painful experience.

Normally, if the HDD hangs Windows, u will not be able to access the drive even if u connect it via USB to another computer. That means u will not be able to recover anything on the drive.

There is a possibility that u may be able to fix the drive, but doing so would wipe the drive clean. That process requires more explanation than possible here.