Arduino Cannot upload sketches or reprogram bootloader

Hello I have an Arduino Uno Make Special Edition with an atmega328p microcontroller. This Arduino has been having issues uploading. When the issue first occurred I selected fix encoding in my IDE and that allowed me to upload my sketch. After having to do this a few times it stopped uploading whatsoever. I enabled verbose output and I got the following messages during upload message

avrdude: Version 6.0.1, compiled on Apr 15 2015 at 19:59:58

         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/

         Copyright (c) 2007-2009 Joerg Wunsch



         System wide configuration file is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\tools\avr/etc/avrdude.conf"



         Using Port                    : COM4

         Using Programmer              : arduino

         Overriding Baud Rate          : 115200

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 2 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 3 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 4 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 5 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 6 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 7 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 8 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 9 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xa8



avrdude done.  Thank you.



Problem uploading to board.  See http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Troubleshooting#upload for suggestions.

After a lot of Google I had thought I had determined that the problem was my bootloader. Naturally I got my other arduino uno out and attempted to reprogram it using the instructions on thispage The bootloader couldn't be programmed and I am now I have hit a standstill. I do not know what the problem might be or how to fix it. Thank you in advance for any suggestions you may have on this topic.

P.S. If it means anything, the arduino passes a loopback test.