Windows takes two hours to boot every reboot. Goes to spinning circles

Hi guys, just reporting in again. After a few months DISM and SFC still good to go. Also, today I'm replacing my 120GB C: drive with a larger drive. I haven't had issues but it keeps creeping down to 20GB of free space. I'm installing a 256GB drive. Since I try never to install software directly to my C: drive, I should have good headroom for awhile.

See you for the next big issue... I hope you are all well.

Hi,

TL/DR: use Tweaking.com's ManageACL_64 from safe mode to repair disk permissions

I read this thread (well, most of it anyhow) as I recently had the exact same issue that Rob initially reported:

• Booting into Windows 10 takes more than two hours (spinning dots)
• Once booted, the Settings/Accounts/Sign-in options page never loads (sliding dots)
• Booting into safe mode is ok (using 3x forced power off events)
• System seems to work fine otherwise.

I tried various fixes first, and it was NOT:

• Clean Boot: (used msconfig to disable non M$ services & startup items, no change)
• Fast Boot (tried with it both off & on, no change)
• USB devices / peripherals (disconnected everything, no change)
• Chkdisk (no errors reported)
• sfc /scannow (no errors reported)
• Startup Repair (ran from boot menu, but no change)
• In-place upgrade install (used instructions linked from this thread, took hours, installed ok, no change)
• Reparse points (a few IE reparse points were missing, "repaired" using Tweaking.com but no change)
• Microsoft login (changed to local login, rebooted, no change)

The thing that DID finally work was:

• repairing ACL permissions using Tweaking.com.

System now boots in the expected 1-2 minutes. Hooray! And sfc /scannow still completes with no issues after Tweaking.com's repair.

Sadly, the logs do not reveal exactly what objects in the filesystem were causing ACL problems, so it's almost certainly possible to do a more targeted repair. But in case you wanted to know, you don't have to run any of the other tweaking.com "repairs" to fix this issue, just the disk permissions (which I did from safe mode). For avoidance of doubt, I did NOT need to use their registry permission repair tool either.

Repairing the permissions also fixed the "Sign in options won't load" issue. I've seen a few posts on the internet reporting that but no fixes reported.

So in summary, looks like Tweaking.com disk permissions repair is a solid fix for this issue (with no side-effects seen to date).

simrick said:

It's interesting that repairing the ACL (Access Control List) permissions resolved your problem. That is usually found when having trouble installing *.msi programs. Did you have problems installing any programs which use the msi installer?

Not to my knowledge. This issue appeared just to materialise out of the blue. The last MSI I installed was Sketchup 2016, but that was quite a while ago. I suspect I'll never know the cause.

Thanks for taking an interest, though!

RobH2 said:

I have a very limiting issue. I've had Windows 10 for months and all has been fine. Then all of a sudden about 5 days ago I rebooted my machine and it passed by the normal logon screen and went straight to a blue screen (not a BSD screen, just a normal blue background color screen) with dots spinning in a circle. If I wait about two hours it will finally end and give me my logon screen.

Once in Windows, I have no errors and and if I check my "Updates" status, there are no errors. So, once in, I create an Image of my C: Drive thinking that now I have a good and bootable OS. But on reboot, I get the spinning circles. If I restore C: with the image, I get the spinning circles.

In desperation I've downloaded "WinShowHideUpdates" and hidden every update in the list. I reboot and the same thing, two hours to boot while stuck on spinning circles.

So I'm really stuck. I can't update anything that requires a reboot unless I want to waste the rest of the day. Has anyone seen this issue? Is there a way to stop it?

Dear Friends, I am also facing this similar situation since two days, and please give me a solution, Thanks

I would suggest you read the 47 pages of posts here, and do not reboot until you have finished. As a clue, I think that Tweaking.com Windows Repair was the solution to the original problem.

If you get to the definitive solution that the original poster used to solve the original problem, try that, but otherwise start a new thread of your own, with your problem stated clearly, and your system specs filled in fully and if you reach a solution, mark the thread solved.

It is never the best way to get help here by tagging your problem onto the end of a long, solved thread.

Welcome to Tenforums, Shibu.