Windows 10 not booting - install log location?

My Windows 10 laptop suddenly stopped booting, following my iphone.
It booted up normally at first, with all the autostart(mostly win32) apps launched working ok, however Forza Horizon (a modern app) wouldn’t start (splash screen and crash to desktop). I restarted, and wasn’t able to get it to boot since.

All of the options in WinPE (apart from the reinstall) were tried. Update rollback didn’t work. sfc found no issues, DISM didn't work in PE. Start up repair didn’t work. Safe mode won't boot either. Couldn’t find the ntbtlog after enabling boot logging, so presume that didn't work either. System restore didn’t work (0x80070026, failed to extract directory - renaming WindowsApps did not fix).

I’ve recently installed iTunes 11 (win32) instead of the one from MS Store, as well as libusb and a minor update to a driver checker. System Restore also shows an update (25.0->26.0) for an update (KB4023057) - not sure if it affects anything.
Could anyone advise what other ways there are to check the boot/install log from WinPE so I can try to diagnose what's the cause?
Did I miss any options (apart from a reinstall) in my process to fix booting?
If I reset (keeping personal files), can I re-import Windows.old (Appdata, Prog Files etc) and a registry backup to restore previously installed software?

Can you run the Startup Repair and copy the log file Startup Repair creates for us to view. Open the Command Prompt and execute following command:

Code:

Copy C:\Windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt  X:

Replace X: letter with external storage drive like USB flash drive. Following commands displays volumes which are installed on the local machine.

Code:

Diskpart

List Volume

FreeBooter, thanks, forgot srt makes a log. unfortunately, looks like it's not blaming anything either in the log. The system drive letter got reassigned but I think that's normal in PE situations.

dalchina, I can browse and interact with the fs/files, and chkdisk is not giving me errors, so I don't think hardware (at least the disks) is at fault. I have an image but it is somewhat outdated and if I restore will have a mismatch with my non-system drive. Since it's the software/configs on the system drive at the moment I am trying to preserve, I will probably hold off on restoring the image.

Interestingly, s32/config/regback has 0 byte files. I've made a copy of config just in case

EyeInTheSky said:

Yeah, the C:\Windows\System32\config ---- is where the whole registry back-up is

i thought a working registry backup is only in the regback folder in config, and the files in root are current registry files? Either way, as you say restoring the full registry might make matters worse - plus, surely the registry on it's own wouldn't break safe mode?

dalchina said:

Unfortunately regback stopped working from 1709

ah, that explains it. just as well system restore is broken too, really polishing those fundamentals of a mature os