Windows won't boot to login screen after latest update

rowlin · 18 Sep 2016

After the latest Win 10 update, my HP Envy laptop won't boot to the login screen, only to a screen with the wallpaper and time. Also shows wireless connection and on off button. When I go into system recovery, it says there are no restore points, says there is a problem with refreshing, startup repair can't repair, and it's unable to reset PC, a required drive partition is missing.

Anything I can do? I have a USB key that I used to do a fresh install on another computer, but it doesn't seem to get recognized. Are my files most likely still intact?
Thanks

dalchina · 18 Sep 2016

Hi, unless your symptoms have occurred because of a hard disk problem, your personal files should hopefully still be there. That said there have been cases where people have lost access to a drive or some of the data associated with their profile when a temporary user profile has been created during the upgrade procedure.

Your PC has two drives, I believe, having looked it up, so depending on how partitions were distributed between them, you may have lost access to the secondary drive- but that's just a guess at this point.

I'm not quite sure which screen you're seeing, given your description.

If you click the power button (you mentioned on/off) (bottom right), you hopefully will see a restart option. Press and hold the SHIFT key and left click restart.

You should be able to navigate through the many prompts via a restart to Safe Mode.
Safe Mode - Start Windows 10 in - Windows 10 Forums
That may help to remind you how to do that.

Can you log in to Safe Mode?

rowlin · 18 Sep 2016

No, none of those worked so appears I can't get into safe mode. My HD is a hybrid drive, so there could be a small SSD, but mainly everything is on the large drive. Also the screen I boot to is the exact same screen as my other laptop boots to, the wallpaper I'm using with the time. When I click that or hit a key, it goes to the screen with the wallpaper with the login box in the center. Except with my HP with the problem there is no login box and I can't get any farther. It does seem to recognize there is Win 10 installed, but maybe the missing partition is where the boot up info was located?
David

pokeefe0001 · 18 Sep 2016

I had what sounds like a very similar problem. I upgraded 2 PCs with the AU with no problems, but yesterday when I upgraded my wife's laptop Windows appeared to freeze at the lock screen. Turns out it wasn't quite a freeze - after about 5 minutes the login prompt appeared, but it looked like the keyboard was ignored as I was typing a password. I couldn't even guarantee the cursor was in the password field. I powered off and back on 3 or 4 times. Same problem each time although at least once I got past the lock screen right away (but still not able to enter the password).

One time after attempting to enter the password I turned to my PC to do some searches for probably 5-10 minutes. When I looked back at the laptop I saw the password had the usual dots indicating a password had been entered. I had no idea whether I had entered the real password so I tried to backspace but nothing happened. Another time after I eventually got an "Invalid password" message.

I was never able to get a Safe Mode boot since I could never get a list of shutdown options; I always had to force a power off. But finally after one of the reboots everything just started working correctly. There have been at least 4 successful starts since then. (Although twice a switch user process gave a blank screen for about 30 seconds causing mild panics.)

rowlin · 18 Sep 2016

I removed the HD and put it in an external enclosure and plugged it in to another PC, and all my files are there, whew. So unless there's a way to repair the missing partion I'm thinking about buying a new SSD, installing a fresh copy of win10 and the move all my files over.

dalchina · 19 Sep 2016

Hi, SSD is the way to go-- 12s or so to the lock screen.

Now, assuming your Windows partition is intact, here's a very good way to recover your Windows exactly as was.
1. Clean install on your new SSD using a bootable Win 10 medium (which you will use later), making sure you leave at least 500Gb unallocated (in my experience Windows needs that in some circumstances). Ideally make the Windows partition a bit bigger than that on your SSHD

You will use that essentially to establish the partition structure.

2. Using e.g. Macrium Reflect (free) - disk imaging, you will replace your new Windows partition with the one from your old drive.

3. Then run startup repair using a Win 10 bootable medium.

4. Your Windows should be as it was but a lot faster.

Then start using disk imaging routinely so you can easily recover from many problems:
Creating disk images lets you restore Windows and all your disks and partitions to a previous working state, quickly and probably without technical help.

You can recover from:
- a failed disk drive (restore to a new one)
- ransomware (which encrypts your disk)
- user error
- unrecoverable problems from failed updates to problem programs
- unbootable PC (hardware faults aside)

Images also act as a full backup- you can extract files too.

You can even use images to help you move more easily and quickly to a new PC.

Imaging can even help you sleep at night knowing you have a second chance.

Many here recommend Macrium Reflect (free) as a good robust solution and more reliable than some others. It’s
- more feature rich
- more flexible
- more reliable
than Windows Backup and Restore system images.

It's well supported with videos, help and a responsive forum.