Repair Windows 10 start up?

bluegreen1 · 4 Days Ago

About 14 hours ago, Windows 10 would not start on my Dell desktop PC, nor could I access safe mode.

I only had a black screen that said "Updating your system 100%" ... it was just spinning with the dots going around in a circle for many hours. I was unable to access safe mode.

Today, after this happening for several hours last night, I finally got black screens which first said:

"preparing automatic repair" followed by the next screen saying, "diagnosing your PC"....
followed by a blue screen, saying:
"Automatic Repair. Your PC did not start correctly. Press restart to restart your PC, which can sometimes fix the problem. You can also press advanced options to try other options to repair your PC." [I did not want to restart again after doing so many times last night with no results.]

I selected advanced options, and then selected troubleshoot, which gave these three choices:
1. Reset this PC (Lets you choose to keep or remove your personal files, and then reinstall Windows.)
2. Dell backup and recovery (Restore your computer, including the factory state.)
3. Advanced options (no description). I selected this [#3], which gives these six options:

3.1. Startup Repair (Fix problems that keep Windows from loading.)
3.2. Startup settings. (Change Windows startup behavior.)
3.3. Command Prompt. (Use the command prompt for advanced troubleshooting.)
3.4. Uninstall Updates. (Remove recently installed quality or future updates from Windows.)
3.5. System Restore. (Use a restore point recorded on your PC to restore Windows.)
3.6. System Image Recovery. (Recover Windows using a specific system image file.)

I am reluctant to select ANY of them without guidance, since I wonder if I will lose the options altogether and end up with an unresponsive black screen again.

I'm leaning toward trying one the following three first (but which one?):
3.1. startup repair
3.3. possibly using the command prompt to run sfc /scannow.
3.4. uninstall recently installed updates.

If I select one of these three and am not successful, I'm concerned that I may not get back to the other two choices [if needed] and may end up with an unresponsive screen again.

Which should I choose? Please advise! Thank you!

Samuria · 4 Days Ago

Its safest tp choose system restore if an update has causesd the problem

dalchina · 4 Days Ago

By all means try that (you will need the appropriate password).

You should also check your disk - starting with a 3rd party program such as Crystal Diskinfo.
E.g. by
- booting your PC from a live boot disk with that or similar present on it e.g. Hiren's, Bob Omb's...
- booting your PC from a Win 10 install disk and following the tenforums tutorial on checking SMART params
etc

Of course if you have a recent 3rd party disk image of your O/S partitions as is so very often recommended here, that gives another way to recover should that be necessary.

bluegreen1 · 4 Days Ago

Thanks to both of you, Samuria & dalchina.

System Restore concerns me since I have no clue how old a System Restore Point might be, or what I might lose? Or are Restore Points created automatically by Windows 10, so that it would be recent?

I'm assuming the password required would be my typical sign-in password? It's the only one I have. (I never created a Microsoft account. I have always deliberately bypassed that.)

I don't have any of those disks, unfortunately - a fact which is probably pretty annoying to you PC gurus....

Anyway - thanks for advising that the first thing to try is System Restore and not the other options. Please confirm whether or not System Restore Points are automatically generated, so I can be confident that I will not lose anything.

Thank you for the help!

dalchina · 4 Days Ago

Hi, assuming you have some restore points, when you elect to launch SR, you should see a dialogue similar to this (you may need to select an option to see more restore points):

Thus you can see the date, and bottom right, can scan for what would be affected once you've selected one.
(See tutorial- in the Tutorials section- do feel free to use that).

so I can be confident that I will not lose anything.

a. See above (scan)
b. SR does not monitor or protect personal data.
c. The tutorial shows the file types it monitors. That may include some scripts.

Windows generates SR points somewhat erratically. I have one created daily on schedule (tutorial available).

There is no guarantee SR will run successfully.. depends what sort of underlying problem there may be.

bluegreen1 · 4 Days Ago

Thank you for the education! I went into System Restore and to the same screen which you depicted.

Last restore point was 4/9/2025, shown when I selected "show more restore points".... There are three "Windows Modules Installer" entries on 4/11/2025 - and nothing else. I'm guessing those are what caused the problem. (This is not my everyday computer, so it makes sense that I discovered the problem on 4/14/2025.)

But when I am on that screen there is no way to proceed with System Restore because the "Next >" icon is greyed out. Hmmmm...

The only option shown is to use the "Back" button....

dalchina · 4 Days Ago

Have you selected - clicked on- the restore point you wish to use?

Here's the tutorial- from the searchable Tutorials section:
System Restore Windows 10

Megahertz · 4 Days Ago

Is the computer the Dell XPS 8900 with a 1TB SATA HDD?
Do you have any Win (7,8,10 or11) USB installation drive? If you don't, you need to create one.
I suggest you build the USB Win 10 22h2 installation drive using MCT so it can boot as Legacy or UEFI

bluegreen1 · 3 Days Ago

Oops.... how did I miss that need to select.... Thanks, dalchina....."Restoring files" is ongoing right now.

dalchina · 3 Days Ago

Ok, now you need to be very patient... and hope/pray...