DISM fails to repair offline Windows

pvivekm · 08 Oct 2020

I am trying to revive my Windows OS using DISM but it fails with error 0x800F081F.
I am booting the machine with latest USB Boot Media (2004) and trying to repair Windows.
The details are:

1. Original Disk failed due to bad sectors.
2. Cloned disk using Macrium Reflect (Free Edition) to a new disk of same size.
3. Windows 10 Home Edition Version 2004 Build 10.0.19041.504 (Not able to boot)
4. Dual boot configured with Ubuntu Linux. (Can boot into Linux)
5. Before using DISM, tried fixing boot record (BCDEdit, Bootrec, etc) but boot process still fails with BSOD ( 0xC0000135)
6. Logs of DISM attached.dism-log.txt

DISM Command used:
Dism /image:C:\ /WinDir:Windows /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:E:\sources\install.wim:1

5. Latest Update Log (From Before Crash) : Attachment 300873

Appreciate your help.

Please let me know if more details are needed. (I have backup image of the Windows partition)

dalchina · 08 Oct 2020

Hi, it suprises me that as bad sectors apparently resulted in O/S corruption that you were able to image/clone the disk - did you perform a forensic clone?

Is the image to which you refer older (earlier) than your clone, and so potentially restorable?

Note that even though what you have created does not include the other partitions comprising Windows (3 more if UEFI) there is still a way to create a full Windows installation.

Is yours UEFI or MBR based?

Do you know the major build of the O/S ?

pvivekm · 08 Oct 2020

dalchina said:

Hi, it suprises me that as bad sectors apparently resulted in O/S corruption that you were able to image/clone the disk - did you perform a forensic clone?

From what I read on Macrium Reflect's clone I believe its a sector by sector clone. I chose to ignore the bad sectors during the clone. Looks like that left some of the OS files in corrupted state.

dalchina said:

Is the image to which you refer older (earlier) than your clone, and so potentially restorable?

The image I have is an image I created AFTER windows crashed due to bad sectors ( and after my attempts to run recovery options failed)

dalchina said:

Note that even though what you have created does not include the other partitions comprising Windows (3 more if UEFI) there is still a way to create a full Windows installation.

Is yours UEFI or MBR based?

Its UEFI based. It also has other OEM Recovery Partitions by HP. From the old Disk I have created images of those partitions as well.

dalchina said:

Do you know the major build of the O/S ?

Don't remember for sure but from the update logs I could see this : 10.0.19041.504

dalchina · 08 Oct 2020

Thanks, given that you have no good image of your failed O/S, the only option would appear to be a clean install, with your earliest task (before you start configuring much) to start a disk imaging routine.

What I do is to create a base image and backup job (which specifies the partitions and image retention rules as prompted by MR, then make some changes, keeping a sumple text record, then run the backup job (e.g. differential image) and repeat those 2 steps until I next upgrade, when I start that all over again.

At best you may be able to recover files by mounting the image if you have no backup of them.

pvivekm · 08 Oct 2020

dalchina said:

Thanks, given that you have no good image of your failed O/S, the only option would appear to be a clean install, with your earliest task (before you start configuring much) to start a disk imaging routine.

What I do is to create a base image and backup job (which specifies the partitions and image retention rules as prompted by MR, then make some changes, keeping a sumple text record, then run the backup job (e.g. differential image) and repeat those 2 steps until I next upgrade, when I start that all over again.

At best you may be able to recover files by mounting the image if you have no backup of them.

Thanks dalchina,
Are you saying that I create an image of the existing partition with DISM /Capture-Image ? Also I donot have much knowledge of backup jobs... it will be great if you can guide me with the steps for it.

dalchina · 08 Oct 2020

A program such as Macrium Reflect (Aomei, Easeus, and others produce such programs) is used to create files containing compressed copied of the used parts of the partitions imaged.

These can be restored, or mounted and files extracted.

Using such a program requires you get a copy, and read up about it. There is a free version of Macrium Reflect.

There are a couple of older tutorials on it here, very simple: there are Youtube vidoes: there'sa a huge on-line help file
Macrium Reflect v7.2 User Guide - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase
and the program comes with a help file.

I'm afraid I'm not going to try to teach you how to use it.

As a guide, get an external disk twice as large as the data you currently expect to image, so you can build an image set e.g. of base image, differential images (in the free version).

You can also Google disk imaging and read up on it.

pvivekm · 08 Oct 2020

As I mentioned in my original post, I have already used Macrium Reflect to create the image and have backed up the files, but I really need to revive my original OS installation.
Since the OS files themselves are corrupt due to bad sectors, I am hoping to fix them with DISM (using the install.wim as source). After all that's what DISM does IMHO.

PS. : I thought you were referring to something like windows task scheduler in your previous reply.

dalchina · 08 Oct 2020

Thank you for your reply.

If you succeeded in an offline repair of the Windows image using Dism, that might leave you a set of intact Windows files, but anything else on that partition could be damaged, from drivers to programs that are set to start up.

The registry could be damaged- DISM wouldn't fix that.

There are so many possibilities, I think with that sort of attempt you'd have to be extraordinarily fortunate.

If you thought you were that lucky, your best bet would then be to discard the other partitions, clean install Windows, and replace the Windows partition with the one you've bodged and see what you got.

Personally, I would consider that an interesting exercise, but unlikely, without minimal damage and a lot of luck, to be a waste of time.

pvivekm · 08 Oct 2020

Registry files seem to be fine. I could export them all to .reg files (can't say about the correctness of values therein, but file integrity looks fine.... and anyway, that question would come after the OS is fixed - I "presume", that is). For now, I am trying to figure out why DISM is failing. Is there anything wrong with the command itself?
Dism /image:C:\ /WinDir:Windows /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:E:\sources\install.wim:1
I mean the install.wim file is available here, which is supposed to have the right files (other than registry files).
Being a developer myself, I am kind of hooked on to this one and just don't want to let go till I exhausted all available options. (Anyway, I learnt many new things and still learning)

dalchina · 08 Oct 2020

Hi, not sure how you got your source index: yours could be right...
dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:X:\sources\install.wim

E.g.

Also note this syntax:
dism /mount-image /imagefile:F:\sources\install.wim /index:1 /mountdir:C:\offline

- worth checking..