Where did my start menu go?

Night Hawk · 18 Feb 2016

Did you remember to unplug any other drives, devices before going to boot live to run the 10 installer? That's about the same or similar to one of the initial errors I ran into last summer before finding out that any non OS drives and devices have to be unplugged or disconnected entirely before beginning. Otherwise the temp install folder and boot files, boot loader end up going in 10 different directions!

One storage saw the BT and WS temp folders while the other saw the boot files! That was sometime later when finally having 10 on the first time I was browsing one drive looking to copy files and folders over to the fresh 10 upgrade followed by clean and found out just part of the equation ending up there as far as the temp folders go. With previous versions even 8 Customer Preview I never had the need to unplug the pair of Sata 3 drives while the second Sata II OS drive would have been if first in the bios order as Disk 0 previously having been OSed with an even older version such as an XP/Vista or Vista/7 beta while the 32beta ended up replacing Vista entirely after the second beta build before the RC was out when the 64bit Beta and RC saw Vista on a VM as well as the XP Mode and even a Linux as well as 98SE VM!

All that and only until 10 arrived with an easy to confuse installer it seems that had been an issue to worry about.. And that is the one thing that can stall 10 on the spot! Unfortunately when someone else ran into that exact same error last summer no one ever replied back on that thread to answer what is seen at the MS answers site when this quesiton has been asked likely countless times by this time! Win 10 fails to Install with Error Code 0x80073b92-0x20009 - Microsoft Community

The OP by the way solved his own problem by answering mentioning he had asked around and got nowhere until unplugging all drives external as well as internal leaving only the C drive being the 10 destination drive plugged in and then saw 10 go right on! I thought was an interesting turn of events seen there which does seem to apply to you as well. Check to make sure those extra drives are unplugged!

Riley NZL · 18 Feb 2016

Night Hawk said:

Did you remember to unplug any other drives, devices before going to boot live to run the 10 installer? That's about the same or similar to one of the initial errors I ran into last summer before finding out that any non OS drives and devices have to be unplugged or disconnected entirely before beginning. Otherwise the temp install folder and boot files, boot loader end up going in 10 different directions!

One storage saw the BT and WS temp folders while the other saw the boot files! That was sometime later when finally having 10 on the first time I was browsing one drive looking to copy files and folders over to the fresh 10 upgrade followed by clean and found out just part of the equation ending up there as far as the temp folders go. With previous versions even 8 Customer Preview I never had the need to unplug the pair of Sata 3 drives while the second Sata II OS drive would have been if first in the bios order as Disk 0 previously having been OSed with an even older version such as an XP/Vista or Vista/7 beta while the 32beta ended up replacing Vista entirely after the second beta build before the RC was out when the 64bit Beta and RC saw Vista on a VM as well as the XP Mode and even a Linux as well as 98SE VM!

All that and only until 10 arrived with an easy to confuse installer it seems that had been an issue to worry about.. And that is the one thing that can stall 10 on the spot! Unfortunately when someone else ran into that exact same error last summer no one ever replied back on that thread to answer what is seen at the MS answers site when this quesiton has been asked likely countless times by this time! Win 10 fails to Install with Error Code 0x80073b92-0x20009 - Microsoft Community

The OP by the way solved his own problem by answering mentioning he had asked around and got nowhere until unplugging all drives external as well as internal leaving only the C drive being the 10 destination drive plugged in and then saw 10 go right on! I thought was an interesting turn of events seen there which does seem to apply to you as well. Check to make sure those extra drives are unplugged!

Wow really? I'm going to have to pull my whole rig apart?

Night Hawk · 18 Feb 2016

The data cable on each of the additional internal drives would need to be unplugged being the fast and easy option only seeing the side cover removed. You should still power down first however and simply place the end of cable(s) for each drive resting right on top or as close to the correct drive as possible and not see any end up slipping down where you have to dig for each one. But having even one extra non OS such as you for setting a dual boot with an older version of Windows being plugged is enough to throw the 10 installer into a loop! You will want to look over the notes about this in the Clean Install guide.

You won't want to be bumping other hardwares like video and sound card or a nic card reaching around blindly while inside the case but have ready access to each. Once the 10 install is on and running well you shut down again as a precaution to replug the drives back in and then decide if you like the drive letters which may have seen a change if you had assigned one as J not E for example to follow what the dvd is usually D. Here the two internal storage/backup drives will be S and T while the external drive is J leaving room for both optical drive D and E as well as room for G the 7 drive as well as a pair of flash drives.

One tip as far as flash drives and other external drives go is being able to keep the exact same drive letter on each even when unplugged and replugged in at some point later. One flash drive I was working with was set as the P for Personal drive since it is a 128gb used for transfers between desktop, laptop, or second desktop, or ? whenever! :)

Riley NZL · 19 Feb 2016

Night Hawk said:

The data cable on each of the additional internal drives would need to be unplugged being the fast and easy option only seeing the side cover removed. You should still power down first however and simply place the end of cable(s) for each drive resting right on top or as close to the correct drive as possible and not see any end up slipping down where you have to dig for each one. But having even one extra non OS such as you for setting a dual boot with an older version of Windows being plugged is enough to throw the 10 installer into a loop! You will want to look over the notes about this in the Clean Install guide.

You won't want to be bumping other hardwares like video and sound card or a nic card reaching around blindly while inside the case but have ready access to each. Once the 10 install is on and running well you shut down again as a precaution to replug the drives back in and then decide if you like the drive letters which may have seen a change if you had assigned one as J not E for example to follow what the dvd is usually D. Here the two internal storage/backup drives will be S and T while the external drive is J leaving room for both optical drive D and E as well as room for G the 7 drive as well as a pair of flash drives.

One tip as far as flash drives and other external drives go is being able to keep the exact same drive letter on each even when unplugged and replugged in at some point later. One flash drive I was working with was set as the P for Personal drive since it is a 128gb used for transfers between desktop, laptop, or second desktop, or ? whenever! :)

After getting all my drives unplugged (not easy in my computer), got the upgrade installed. First boot seemed to work ok, but after shutting down, plugging all my drives back in, then restarting, I'm presented with nothing but a black screen after login. If I leave it about 2-3 minutes my icons and explorer.exe seem to load. I unplugged all my drives again and reboot, but that didn't make any difference either.

Also, I still have no start menu.

Night Hawk · 19 Feb 2016

Once you replug the drives back in the first place to go is into the Advance section of the bios setup to insure the 10 drive is at the top of the list and set as the default boot device first in the boot order if not seeing the optical set first. Laptops generally the optical set first in case you decide to see the recovery media made up typically on dvd when an optical drive is included or can be installed. Tablets, netbooks, etc. wouldn't see that at all however.

The insured boot from the 10 drive would indicate right away the Windows you are seeing is being the upgrade you just saw. The problem with the upgrades except for the second desktop going smoothly until replaced later by a clean install on a fresh primary was things getting scrambled up! The first laptop was 7 upgraded to 10 seeing no Start button yet you could still click to open the Start menu and then no access to the AllApps! Immediate clean install to follow! I think you are running into the same thing there.

Riley NZL · 19 Feb 2016

Night Hawk said:

Once you replug the drives back in the first place to go is into the Advance section of the bios setup to insure the 10 drive is at the top of the list and set as the default boot device first in the boot order if not seeing the optical set first. Laptops generally the optical set first in case you decide to see the recovery media made up typically on dvd when an optical drive is included or can be installed. Tablets, netbooks, etc. wouldn't see that at all however.

The insured boot from the 10 drive would indicate right away the Windows you are seeing is being the upgrade you just saw. The problem with the upgrades except for the second desktop going smoothly until replaced later by a clean install on a fresh primary was things getting scrambled up! The first laptop was 7 upgraded to 10 seeing no Start button yet you could still click to open the Start menu and then no access to the AllApps! Immediate clean install to follow! I think you are running into the same thing there.

I am booting from the drive, the optical drive I am using is an USB attached one, I did get my computer from a museum, so it doesn't have an internal optical drive. I unplugged it altogether after it had finished installing

Hi, I'm not entirely sure what you are saying in your second paragraph. My first install was clean install from Windows 10 media, not an upgrade from Windows 7 , I just did an inplace upgrade using Windows 10 media.

Riley NZL · 19 Feb 2016

Riley NZL said:

I am booting from the drive, the optical drive I am using is an USB attached one, I did get my computer from a museum, so it doesn't have an internal optical drive. I unplugged it altogether after it had finished installing

Hi, I'm not entirely sure what you are saying in your second paragraph. My first install was clean install from Windows 10 media, not an upgrade from Windows 7 , I just did an inplace upgrade using Windows 10 media.

Also, just to be clear, I have no start menu at all, not just no access to apps.

Night Hawk · 19 Feb 2016

You were the one mentioning an upgrade and why I replied that way.

After getting all my drives unplugged (not easy in my computer), got the upgrade installed.

That is why I explained what can happen with upgrade installs coming out buggy! But I had to think back about your mention earlier about the inplace repair install you mentioned in Post #8 the other day being given a try with the exact same 10 media you saw made up. If you had seen a bad burn to a blank dvd-r, a lousey brand of blanks or simply a bad day, or the write to a flash drive which either came incomplete or you need a better one to work with these are all potential problems.

A bad burn, bad write, bad disk, or bad hair day with a cheapo flash drive being used over and over again or simply worn out that won't provide a good solution! At times you could have a bad clean install but seeing the same problem happen over and over again is a clear indication that something is wrong and likely with the media being used.

You may have seen a bad download?! That's another possible cause to look at where you would have seen a not fully complete "Windows.iso" which needs to be replaced with a fresh download. When downloading various iso files for a new release of some distro I've ended having to have to go back or select an alternate download site in order to get a good one found intact. I would advise considering both media and download as being bad to be able to rule either or both for the next attempt rather then see you struggle with this over and over and simply not getting anywhere. You're getting frustrated for sure not seeing results and now you have to start looking at those as possible causes. Been there done that on many occasions over the years.

Riley NZL · 19 Feb 2016

Night Hawk said:

You were the one mentioning an upgrade and why I replied that way.

That is why I explained what can happen with upgrade installs coming out buggy! But I had to think back about your mention earlier about the inplace repair install you mentioned in Post #8 the other day being given a try with the exact same 10 media you saw made up. If you had seen a bad burn to a blank dvd-r, a lousey brand of blanks or simply a bad day, or the write to a flash drive which either came incomplete or you need a better one to work with these are all potential problems.

A bad burn, bad write, bad disk, or bad hair day with a cheapo flash drive being used over and over again or simply worn out that won't provide a good solution! At times you could have a bad clean install but seeing the same problem happen over and over again is a clear indication that something is wrong and likely with the media being used.

You may have seen a bad download?! That's another possible cause to look at where you would have seen a not fully complete "Windows.iso" which needs to be replaced with a fresh download. When downloading various iso files for a new release of some distro I've ended having to have to go back or select an alternate download site in order to get a good one found intact. I would advise considering both media and download as being bad to be able to rule either or both for the next attempt rather then see you struggle with this over and over and simply not getting anywhere. You're getting frustrated for sure not seeing results and now you have to start looking at those as possible causes. Been there done that on many occasions over the years.

Hi Nighthawk, when I originally installed Windows 10, it must have been off downloadable media, as when I wen to do the inplace upgrade from my retail disc it was still sealed up. I used the retail disc this time for the inplace upgrade/repair

Night Hawk · 19 Feb 2016

And you still end up seeing a missing Start menu? Yet the retail dvd you have was likely for the 10240 build there simply mass printed when 10 was first out on the RTM side! Likewise the OEM disk here would be the 10240 as well while I only used the key not the disk! Likewise there remember a fresh download to replace.... may hold the solution since without receiving the Insider Preview builds the latest for you would the Threshold 2 Update which would require an 8gb flash drive when downloaded by way of the Media Creation tool. For the Tech Bench site that is for direct downloads of the dual edition in either the 32bit or 64bit flavor you select.

The likelihood that the media you bought retail even if on flash drive would still be the 10240 RTM build and not the Threshold 2 Update unless purchased at least in late November or early December allowing time for distribution to wholesale and onto retail outlets.

Do you remember just when you first downloaded and saw the 10 media created that was used at first? If you downloaded from anywhere prior to November 11th that would also likely be the 10240 since you are not signed for the Windows Insider Program and likely used the MC tool for that.

How long the 10 install was on before the updates would be a good indication of just when you saw 10 downloaded. And if it turns out it was before the TH2 update the option to go for that to see a fresh install and trying that with different media like a different media using a flash drive due to the larger size of both the "4 in 1" TH2 or dual edition iso from Tech Bench being over 4gb on disk. You will want fresh media as well as backtrack to look over each step you took.