I have a Win10 Pro desktop PC fully updated. On booting, I get a BSOD which then goes into repair mode which is unsuccessful. In Advanced Options I go into MSDOS option and have run chkdsk /f and sfc /scannow on the boot drive. Both commands tell me there is no problem with the file system. I ought to look at the event logs but don't know where they are in the Windows folder. The BSOD tells me nothing about what has happened. I'd appreciate some advice!
@sluice,
At the top of this page are instructions for the type of information needed to diagnose a BSOD. You have provided absolutely zero information, not even the BSOD error message so this makes diagnosis impossible.
As for the Event Logs, right-click on Start and then select "Event Viewer". The Event Viewer will allow you to view the Windows Event Logs.
Thanks hsehestedt. There was no relevant info displayed in the BSOD screen, believe me, I checked. The PC is now going straight into Automatic Repair mode which doesn't repair the fault. What I was hoping is that I could look at the Event logs from within the DOS box. There was a brief message about checking h:\recovery\windowsRE\WinRE.wim\System32\logfiles\SRT\SrtTrail.txt but I can't find that file on any of my logical disks. Obviously without Windows I can't view the Event Viewer.
From very personal experiences, BSoD is the holy grail of terrorizing "Kabuki --build as house of cards-- Theater" users with misinformation.
It is written by engineers who think all you need is some irrelevant cryptic technical gobbledygook blah blah information that very often has absolutely no relevancy to the actual situation!
I came across a few over the years and I think that I even posted here about it that some cryptic error codes or reference to a file name on the BSoD had absolutely nothing to do with the real cause! You can get BSoD's with cryptic error codes and even file reference because a path or pointer to a file is wrong yet nothing is wrong with the file itself!
Metaphorically speaking, it's like [I]me giving you a key to a house but I give you a key from a padlock. The house is OK, the doorlock is OK. you simply have the wrong key!
Worst of all is the useless advice you often find all over the World Wide Web of mis- and disinformation "click bait, how can we sell you something" nonsense answers, too much of all here and there and everywhere.
Again, metaphorically speaking, either the seven [mostly irrelevant but certainly often misleading] steps that usually end with reinstalling Windows (a.k.a. tearing down the house because the front door jams. the sort of "you need to replace the door of the house or tear it down or rebuild the entire building!)" Yet all you need is the right key...
"Repair mode" must be some engineered joke messing around with users. To this day I never once on any and by now hundreds of computers, did this feature "repair" anything! All I ever got was the standard answer "could not repair" (Again presumptuous assuming engineer "thinking" theory how things should be but often much has nothing to do with reality and real life!)
First of all, forget all the scans and disk checks etc. because if you did them once and they report back all OK, that tells you already that this is not the problem!
From personal knowledge and experience 9 out of 10 times with boot BSoDs, the problem lies in the holy grail of all things booting: the Boot Configuration Data (BCD).
There, a single entry, a single benign error, such as a typo, a single wrong letter or [number] reference and all misinformation hell breaks loose with BSoDs!
I'm talking from much experience, cursing, swearing, frustrations, late nights...!
Do and answer this first:
- Just in case, post a screenshot of the BSoD, specifically the code and/or filename if shown. (take it with her cell phone camera or simply write it down.)
- Does your system boot is BIOS or UEFI?
- Can you boot in safe mode?
- If yes, there is a already the answer to where the problem lies!
- If no, what happens?
- Boot from a Windows PE version from an external device i.e. USB stick (or as used to be DVD).
- If you succeed open a CMD window (it would be likely X:/sources> we need to know what the drive letter assignment is for your actual boot drive C:\
- Before we go further type in that cmd window notepad a copy of Notepad will start which we will need later.
- Back to the CMD window, let's find out what you currently assign
- A simple way to do that is type at the prompt diskpart
- You will get a new prompt DISKPART>
- Type in: list disk
- You will get a list of all your disks.
- If you have more than one disk make sure you select the right one containing the OS.
- Type in: sel disk# (# being the number as listed before)
- It will tell you that disk# is selected
- Type in: list vol
- Now you will see a list of all the volumes with drive letter, label etc.
- Look for the volume that represents your EFI partition, (~100MB FAT32) and note what drive letter it has been assigned
Now that we know under which drive letter at the moment all is, type in the following:
(For BCDedit to work and show you the right info you must tell the computer where to look, hence the question earlier, does your system boot is BIOS or UEFI?)
- If BIOS, type in: bcdedit /store #:\Boot\BCD and enter.
- If UEFI, type in: bcdedit /store #:\efi\microsoft\boot\bcd and enter.
(Whereas # is the assigned [EFI partition] drive letter as mentioned before.)
You should now see the holy grail of all things booting, the contents of your BCD file. (BTW. A binary file)
Now, you should also still have running the Notepad window open as mentioned earlier.
Highlight all the aforementioned (BCD) text copy all and paste it in notepad.
Save the notepad file, name it clearly i.e. MyBCD.txt either to the root of the USB stick or anywhere else you can easily find and access it.
Post it here in your reply either as text or attached as a file.
Report back!
Last edited by 3Bit; 1 Week Ago at 16:36.
3Bit, thanks for the info. Unfortunately, bcd shows nothing, just the list of commands. For some reason, I'm unable to upload the screen shot I took to show. I have a 500GB SSD as my C: drive and it is possible that the hard fault lies in the SSD which would explain both the BSOD and the inability to bcd it. I can, however, dir the contents of C:\.
Please find a flash drive that you can format and a working Windows computer.
Run Sea Tool bootable Long Generic test > take pictures > post images or share links
SeaTools Bootable | Seagate US
https://www.seagate.com/content/dam/...lsBootable.zip
Run Memtest86+ for 8 or more passes > take pictures > post images or share links
Memtest86+ | The Open-Source Memory Testing Tool
MemTest86+ - Test RAM
After testing the drive and RAM run the commands that 3Bit posted (post #4).
LOL. Criticize away. Yeah, I rushed my reading of the post. I saw that it was repeatedly rebooting and got hung up on the question of how to access the event log files. I neglected to gather that it was rebooting often enough (or early enough in the boot process) that files were not accessible.
In this case, you could always connect the drive to another system (if that is even practical) and access the logs at %SystemRoot%\System32\Winevt\Logs\.
The C: drive is an SSD plugged into the motherboard and so not removable, unfortunately. I did it that way for speed of access. and to make it awkward for myself in the event of a failure. I suspect a power outage which happened during the early boot stage might have buggered the SSD.
no BCD? No booting just a handful of BSoDs for your entertainment!
Windows can't boot because it doesn't know where to look and neither is it told. hence it spits out the BSoD
How many partitions do you have on your drive C have?
there should/must be at least 4 if not 5, 2 of which are essential for windows to boot.
an unnamed* NTFS about 128 MB, Microsoft reserved
an usually named "restore" NTFS of about 400-500 MB
an unnamed FAT32 of about 100 MB, that is the critical EFI boot partition where the BCD lives
a partition that shows us drive C: and is usually the largest, that's where your OS apps etc. reside
and usually named "recovery" NTFS of about 700 MB
*for better clarity eventually you can give them a label.
I labeled my FAT32 "EFI" and my drive C: "Apps".
in fact all my drives have labels.
The boot process for an UEFI is that the system looks for a BCD binary file in that FAT32 partition
in there itlooks for the boot manager which contains information which partition and the path for the needed bootmgfw.efi.
then for the boot lower which has to be at least one for the system knows what to boot and were to look for.
which partition, the past to the critical windload.efi is, where the OS is etc. in a few things more.
If all is where it says it is "the oven gets fired up!"
if one single item, character, number or reference is wrong, pointing in the wrong location/address/place
you'll get your beloved BSoD or just a blank screen with nothing.
Four 100% certain is, the kabuki theater a.k.a. Windows will not start!
if you don't have your BCD you will have to rebuild one it's not that difficult but before we go there I need to establish some basics.
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