Dual boot: Problem reinstalling W10

Megahertz · 12 May 2021

Please edit your profile with ALL your hardware specs. It will help us to help you
System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums

Did you have this freezing a long time or it is recent?
It can be a failing drive.
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
chkdsk c: /f
It will say your disk is in use and if you want to schedule to next start = yes
Restart
Pay attention on the results, specially bad blocks, bad clusters, bad sectors etc

Paul Black · 13 May 2021

Hello NavyLCDR,

NavyLCDR said:

First, let's see what I have:

Attachment 332387

My "Windows 7" (pretend) is C: drive, of course. My Windows 10 partition I want to apply to is T: drive. My DVD is E:. So, I open a command prompt with admin (run as administrator) and lets see what I have on my DVD. The commands are:

Code:

E:
cd Sources
dir install.*
dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:install.wim

You need to change drive letter E: to whatever your DVD drive letter is. You probably have install.esd on your DVD instead of install.wim, so change the filename in the command to install.esd, if that is true. Here are the commands with the results:

Code:

C:\Windows\System32>E:

E:\>cd Sources

E:\sources>dir install.*
 Volume in drive E is CCCOMA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV9
 Volume Serial Number is D530-A34B

 Directory of E:\sources

10/06/2019  09:09 PM     4,612,159,553 install.wim
               1 File(s)  4,612,159,553 bytes
               0 Dir(s)               0 bytes free

E:\sources>dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:install.wim

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Details for image : install.wim

Index : 1
Name : Windows 10 Home
Description : Windows 10 Home
Size : 14,513,453,277 bytes

Index : 2
Name : Windows 10 Home N
Description : Windows 10 Home N
Size : 13,698,165,844 bytes

Index : 3
Name : Windows 10 Home Single Language
Description : Windows 10 Home Single Language
Size : 14,495,067,516 bytes

Index : 4
Name : Windows 10 Education
Description : Windows 10 Education
Size : 14,780,689,298 bytes

Index : 5
Name : Windows 10 Education N
Description : Windows 10 Education N
Size : 13,967,235,459 bytes

Index : 6
Name : Windows 10 Pro
Description : Windows 10 Pro
Size : 14,782,181,615 bytes

Index : 7
Name : Windows 10 Pro N
Description : Windows 10 Pro N
Size : 13,968,715,159 bytes

Index : 8
Name : Windows 10 Pro Education
Description : Windows 10 Pro Education
Size : 14,780,619,060 bytes

Index : 9
Name : Windows 10 Pro Education N
Description : Windows 10 Pro Education N
Size : 13,967,164,321 bytes

Index : 10
Name : Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
Description : Windows 10 Pro for Workstations
Size : 14,780,653,945 bytes

Index : 11
Name : Windows 10 Pro N for Workstations
Description : Windows 10 Pro N for Workstations
Size : 13,967,199,656 bytes

The operation completed successfully.

E:\sources>

The DIR command shows I have install.wim. The DISM get-wiminfo command shows that if I want Windows 10 Home, I want index 1. Next I am going to format T: drive, apply the image to it, and then update my BCD so I can boot into it. The commands are:

Code:

format T: /FS:NTFS /V:"Windows 10" /Q
dism /apply-image /imagefile:install.wim /Index:1 /ApplyDir:T:\
bcdboot T:\Windows /d /addlast

Don't forget to change drive letters to match yours, and you may need install.esd instead of install.wim. Change the index number to match the version of Windows 10 that you want. The commands with results are:

Code:

E:\sources>format T: /FS:NTFS /V:"Windows 10" /Q
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Enter current volume label for drive T: Home

WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK
DRIVE T: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? y
QuickFormatting 64.0 GB
Creating file system structures.
Format complete.
      64.0 GB total disk space.
      63.9 GB are available.

E:\sources>dism /apply-image /imagefile:install.wim /Index:1 /ApplyDir:T:\

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Applying image
[==========================100.0%==========================]
The operation completed successfully.

E:\sources>E:\sources>bcdboot T:\Windows /d /addlast
Boot files successfully created.

E:\sources>

That's it. Reboot the computer. Knowing the commands to use takes me 2 minutes for the commands and then 3 or 4 minutes waiting for the image to apply. Yours will be longer to apply coming from a DVD.

I assume that this method would work for ANY Dual-Boot scenario, is that correct please?

RBowser · 13 May 2021

Megahertz said:

Please edit your profile with ALL your hardware specs. It will help us to help you
System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums

Did you have this freezing a long time or it is recent?
It can be a failing drive.
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
chkdsk c: /f
It will say your disk is in use and if you want to schedule to next start = yes
Restart
Pay attention on the results, specially bad blocks, bad clusters, bad sectors etc

Thanks for your continued help, Megahertz - I hadn't noticed the System Specs page before, so now I've filled that out as completely as I could.

The freezing is recent. About a month ago I decided to make the W10 partition much larger. Immediately after doing that, the problem of locking up started. Now I've wiped the W10 installation out twice, reformatted the partition each time, but when I successfully reinstall (as I did yesterday after getting some help here) - the same issue exists. After an unpredictable amount of time the cursor freezes, the computer doesn't respond to the keyboard either - I have to crash-dive.

I want to stress that everything works fine when I'm on the W7 partition, as I am right now. Nothing has changed in its functioning.

While dealing with this problem for the past month, I've done numerous Command Prompts, as per info I've gathered online. But I hadn't done the /F - fix option before. So, I did that, and as I've seen numerous times at this point, a lot of errors come up on the W10 drive and Windows supposedly fixes them. - This sweep through with CHKDSK may have been more thorough than what I've done before. I haven't yet checked to see how W10 is after doing this - I don't want to crash-dive yet again this morning. I'll bite the bullet and try again after posting this, then I'll leave it all alone until tomorrow.

Here are some of the results as CHKDSK did its thing. First I scanned without the /F option:

"extended attribute set and a reparse point detected" - hundreds of those.
"Windows found problems with the file system. Run CHKDSK with the /F option to correct these." - So then I ran that, as per your instructions. Here are things I saw during that scan:

"Deleting the extended attribute set due to the presence of reparse point in file X" - and there were hundreds of those entries. I've seen those errors before and watched Windows try to fix them.

"Discovered free space marked as allocated in the master file table MFT bitmap - and also in the volume bitmap" THAT ONE was new to me. I haven't seen that before.

Finally, when CHKDSK was done it said "Windows has made corrections to the file system."

That sounds promising - I'll be checking W10 before the day is done.

Thanks again. -

Megahertz · 13 May 2021

Just to make sure, run chkdsk c: /f again.

Back to windows, do a system file check.
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
sfc /scannow

If it finds errors, reboot and run again.

Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

and then

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

RBowser · 13 May 2021

Megahertz said:

Just to make sure, run chkdsk c: /f again.

Back to windows, do a system file check.
Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
sfc /scannow

If it finds errors, reboot and run again.

Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

and then

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

OK, good - Will do. I've done scannow/ScanHealth/RestoreHealth routines before, but not since this last W10 reinstall. Thanks.

SIW2 · 13 May 2021

even though W10 was installed, all looked great - it only lasted a few minutes. The same exact problem happened as with the last installation, the glitch I was trying to get rid of. After being up and running for just a little while, everything freezes up, the cursor can't move, and my only option is to do a hard shut down.---

One possibility - it is getting jammed trying to update itself. It is also not impossible there is a problem with the disk somewhere on that partition.

Megahertz · 13 May 2021

RBowser said:

OK, good - Will do. I've done scannow/ScanHealth/RestoreHealth routines before, but not since this last W10 reinstall. Thanks.

Let's see your HDD SMART status.
Download, extract and run Crystal Disk Info. It is a portable, don't need to install.

RBowser · 13 May 2021

Megahertz said:

Let's see your HDD SMART status.
Download, extract and run Crystal Disk Info. It is a portable, don't need to install.

Good news, Mega and SIW2 - Hope I don't jinx it, but I've been in W10 a couple of hours now and there's been no freezing. I haven't been able to keep going in W10 for more than a few minutes. SO - it's looking very good.

That major CHKDSK /F routine earlier must have done the trick, since it did report that it fixed a lot of errors and said that, for some reason, there was free space somehow marked as allocated. I also ran the CHKDSK routines again, including ScanHealth and RestoreHealth and those reports were good "No component store corruption detected" and "The restore operation completed successfully."

I looked up what to do with the HDD SMART status - Got it. RESULT: OK.

Then I ran the Crystal Disk info - results for both 32bit and 64 bit--GOOD.

SO - all that's encouraging, and with W10 whizzing away still after a couple of hours, it's looking extremely good.

THANKS!

Megahertz · 13 May 2021

Good to know you've got it fixed.

NavyLCDR · 14 May 2021

Paul Black said:

Hello NavyLCDR,

I assume that this method would work for ANY Dual-Boot scenario, is that correct please?

If the commands are run in Windows, yes. Won't work in Linux.