Unable to boot; 0xc000000f error on start

Greetings! Bit of a long story here, I will try and keep it simple.

I recently upgraded the following components on my computer.

motherboard MSI 870a-g54 --> ASRock Z370 Killer SLI/ac
RAM: Corsair XMS 4gb + G.Skilll Ripjaw 8gb --> 16 gb Corsair Vengeance LPX
CPU: AMD Phenom II 965 --> Intel i5-8400

I did not take any measures with the operating system before swapping components, other than making sure to link my Windows 10 account with my Microsoft account.

After the change, the motherboard booted up, I was able to enter the BIOS without any trouble, but attempting to boot into Windows 10 I encountered a black screen with a 0xc000000f error.

All the drives connected (there are three) and the DVD drive are recognized in the BIOS. I have tried only leaving the boot drive connected, but with no change. I have a boot USB with the Windows 10 ISO file loaded onto it. I am able to load into Window Repair from the USB drive.

When I opened the Registry Key system via the Command Line, all three drives were listed and accessible in the file explorer (I didn't end up changing the registry keys at all, but it was a possible fix I had read about).

I also discovered that my old drives were all partitioned with MBR, not sure if that is causing problems or not, but my understanding is the enabling CSM compatibility in the BIOS should address that. Not sure.

Here are the things that I have tried:

Startup repair - said couldn't repair it.
Restoring to previous restore point - Appeared to succeed, butno improvement
Rebuild the BCD - this was attempted through the command prompt accessible via the Window Repair screen. During the process, the windows files were detected, but I couldn't change them because it said system could not be found(?).The only effect this had was to add "BCD Corrupted" to the black screen o' death. Not sure that was an improvement. During the process, the windows files were detected, but I couldn't change them because it said system could not be found(?).

Upgraded BIOS to latest version - no improvement
Made sure boot order listed SSD with OS on it first.
Made sure the CSM compatibility was enabled in the BIOS boot system. Tried reinstalling the old Motherboard/CPU/RAM combination in order to remove the files I wanted to save, or see if I could change anything to make it more likely to work, but I encountered the exact same error. Which is weird.


I could go for a new reinstall of Windows after reformatting the drive, but I'd like to avoid that if I could obviously. Anyone have anything else I could try. I've been going at it for four days now, with no success. Any help appreciated.

Perform the following steps:
1) Find a flash drive that you can format ( > or = 8 GB)
2) Create a bootable Windows 10 iso:
Download Windows 10
3) Insert the Windows 10 iso into any USB port
4) Power on the computer and click the applicable keyboard key:
List of PC brands with their corresponding hot-keys
5) If it is a custom computer then open the BIOS and temporarily modify the BIOS boot menu so that the USB port is on top
6) Power on the computer and boot to the external USB hard drive
7) It may take 5 - 10 minutes for the iso to load while viewing the Microsoft Windows icon
8) Select language, time, currency, and keyboard, or click next
9) In the left lower corner click on repair your computer
10) Click troubleshoot
11) Click command prompt
12) This should open a box > Administrator: X:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe > X:\Sources>
13) Use a camera or smart phone camera to take pictures of these commands and results and post images into the thread for troubleshooting steps based upon the results of these commands.
14) C:
15) dir
16) D:
17) dir
18) bcdedit /enum
19) bcdedit | find "osdevice"
20) diskpart
21) list disk
22) list volume
23) select disk 0
24) list partition
25) select partition 1
26) detail partition
27) select partition 2
28) detail partition
29) select partition 3
30) detail partition
31) select partition 4
32) detail partition
33) (if there are more than 4 partitions please continue in the same fashion so that all partitions are displayed)
34) select disk 1
35) list partition
36) exit
37) chkdsk /r
(This may take many hours and in the Windows recovery environment typically displays ETA) Use the drive letter displayed in step #19 in the form chkdsk /r M: and replace M with the drive letter)
38) (reboot)
39) (View the results of step #19 for the partition drive letter and use this drive letter for the next set of steps)
40) sfc /scannow /offbootdir=M:\ /offwindir=M:\windows (change the drive letters M to the partition drive letter seen in the find osdevice command.) (there is a space between \ /) (This may take time to complete)
41) bootrec /fixmbr
42) bootrec /fixboot
43) bootrec /scanos
44) bootrec /rebuildbcd
45) (reboot)
46) If the repair is successful consider the repair fragile and make the following steps:
a) backup all files to another drive or to the cloud
b) make a backup image using Macrium, Acronis, Aeomi, Paragon, or similar software
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free
c) make a brand new restore point
47) Please use a camera or smart phone camera to post images of the commands and results into the thread.
If the repair is not successful there are additional troubleshooting steps to fix the failure to boot.
If the repair is successful please reply in the thread so that it may be useful to others that are having similar problems.

Thanks so much for the quick response. I will try what you suggested and post the results, with screenshots later this evening.

Ok tried what you suggested. It did not have the desired result unfortunately. As you can see in the photos, I was unable to bootrec /fixboot resulted in an "Access denied" and trying to /rebuildbcd resulted in a "System not found" message.

The command to "find osdevice" also did not seem to return anything, which is also visible in the photos.

Also not sure why the red line appeared, but I'll worry about that later I guess. Still encountering 0xc000000f error on startup. Any other help still appreciated.

Photos can be found here: Troubleshoot — imgbb.com

Diskpart displayed the partitions with assigned drive letters.
What troubleshooting steps had already been done?

In the post the use of : next to letters sometimes creates :)
So the information in this post is displayed twice, once as the typical post and once using the code.

Please use a camera or smart phone camera to take pictures of the commands and results and post images into the thread.


The chkdsk displayed that it made repairs although the detail of the repairs was not seen in the report.
sfc displayed no integrity violations
bootrec /fixboot displayed access denied
bootrec /rebuildbcd displayed the BCD store could not be opened and the required system device could not found
The drive is MBR

Open command prompt > administrator: X:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe > X:\Sources> type:
1) diskpart
2) list disk
3) select disk 0
4) list volume
(select the active system partition and assign letter=v:)
5) select volume 1
(volume 1 is the selected volume)

6) assign letter=v:
(diskpart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point)

7) exit
(leaving diskpart)
(x:sources>)

8) v:
(v:\>)

9) md \efi\microsoft\boot
(v:\>)

10) cd /d v:\efi\microsoft\boot
(v:\efi\microsoft\boot)

11) bootrec /fixboot
(The operation completed successfully)
(v:\efi\microsoft\boot)

12) bcdboot c:\windows /L en-us /s v: /f all
(The operation completed successfully)
(v:\efi\microsoft\boot)

13) exit

14) (reboot the computer and reopen command prompt > administrator: x:\windows\system32\cmd.exe > x:sources> type:)

15) bootred /fixmbr
(The operation completed successfully)

16) bootrec /fixboot
(The operation completed successfully)

17) bootrec /scanos
(Scanning all disks for Windows installations
Please wait since this may take a while
Successfully scanned Windows installations
Total identified Windows installations (it may now display: 2)
The operation completed successfully)

18) bootrec /rebuildbcd
(Scanning all disks for Windows installations
Please wait since this may take a while
Successfully scanned Windows installations
Total identified Windows installations (it may now display: 1)
The operation completed successfully
Add installation to boot list? Yes(Y)/No(N)/All(A):)

19) A
(The operation completed successfully)
(x:\sources>)

20) exit

21) reboot

Please use a camera or smart phone camera to take pictures of the commands and results and post images into the thread.

Code:

Diskpart displayed the partitions with assigned drive letters.What troubleshooting steps had already been done?

Please use a camera or smart phone camera to take pictures of the commands and results and post images into the thread.

The chkdsk displayed that it made repairs although the detail of the repairs was not seen in the report.
sfc displayed no integrity violations
bootrec /fixboot displayed access denied
bootrec /rebuildbcd displayed the BCD store could not be opened and the required system device could not found
The drive is MBR

Open command prompt > administrator: X:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe > X:\Sources> type:
1) diskpart
2) list disk
3) select disk 0

4) list volume
(select the active system partition and assign letter=v:)

5) select volume 1
(volume 1 is the selected volume)

6) assign letter=v:
(diskpart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point)

7) exit
(leaving diskpart)
(x:sources>)

8) v:
(v:\>)

9) md \efi\microsoft\boot
(v:\>)

10) cd /d v:\efi\microsoft\boot
(v:\efi\microsoft\boot)

11) bootrec /fixboot
(The operation completed successfully)
(v:\efi\microsoft\boot)

12) bcdboot c:\windows /L en-us /s v: /f all
(The operation completed successfully)
(v:\efi\microsoft\boot)

13) exit

14) (reboot the computer and reopen command prompt > administrator: x:\windows\system32\cmd.exe > x:sources> type:)

15)  bootred /fixmbr
(The operation completed successfully)

16) bootrec /fixboot
(The operation completed successfully)

17) bootrec /scanos
(Scanning all disks for Windows installations
Please wait since this may take a while
Successfully scanned Windows installations
Total identified Windows installations (it may now display: 2)
The operation completed successfully)

18) bootrec /rebuildbcd
(Scanning all disks for Windows installations
Please wait since this may take a while
Successfully scanned Windows installations
Total identified Windows installations (it may now display: 1)
The operation completed successfully
Add installation to boot list? Yes(Y)/No(N)/All(A):)

19) A
(The operation completed successfully)
(x:\sources>)

20) exit

21) reboot

Please use a camera or smart phone camera to take pictures of the commands and results and post images into the thread.

@axe0 - No, there was no file mentioned, although the error code remained the same. After I used the bootsec.exe /nt60 command the File: boot/bcd line appeared, which can be seen in the photos.
@zbook - I'll try what you have suggested and post the results. As for the assigned drive letters, no I don't know why they already have assigned letters. As far as I can recall, those were in fact the drive letters they were assigned when the computer was working, but I didn't reassign them during the troubleshooting process. The steps I had already taken are listed in the original post. I had tried to rebuild the BCD previously, but with the same results (i.e. didn't have access, system not found etc.)

And here are the results for round 2. Access still denied, system still not found.

Photos here: Troubleshoot Attempt 2 — imgbb.com

Thanks zbook. The bootsec.exe /nt60 was used after I had already tried to rebuild, but before I posted on here. It appeared to work, but didn't have any effect on the error, other than to add a "File: BOOT/BCD" as I noted above. Other than that command, I have only tried variations on the bcd rebuild that you had me try, with the same results "access denied", "system not found" etc.

I also tried what you suggested, and it seemed to work alright (i.e. i was able to copy the files etc), but had the same error. I was able to boot up with a live copy of Linux on a USB and backup the files I wanted, so I am just going to do a clean install of Windows after reformatting the drive. Thanks for all the help though, I really appreciate it.