Win 10 won't boot, recovery steps will not run

clif9710 · 18 Oct 2021

My Dell desktop running 21H1 failed to reboot on a restart. Win10 went through it's recovery attempts, doing a disk check, repair but that didn't help. I cannot boot into safe mode.

I don't have a backup and I never set a restore point, so it appears the only thing I can do is burn a ISO DVD and try to reinstall Win10.

I tried a repair from the machine and from the cloud, neither of which would work. As I understand it, my choice for the ISO is either a 8gB+ stick or a DL DVD. The desktop does attempt to access the DVD when I power it up, so I am hoping it is #1 in the
boot device list. I don't think things progress to the point where a USB stick would be recognized. I understand the BIOS can only be accessed by settings in Win10, no keyboard shortcut on boot now.

I can get to the command line and chkdsk reports no problems with the SSD, but it shows only 358 mB of total disk space, not the 2 tB capacity the disk has (or had!) I'm very suspicious the SSD is down for the count.

My plan is to make the ISO on my Win10 laptop (same version) though I will have to buy a DL DVD to make it.

Does this appear to be the right course I'm on?

dalchina · 19 Oct 2021

Hi, you can only perform an in-place upgrade repair of an existing installation if you can boot normally.

You should be able to get to the BIOS without Windows booting. Dell says (via Google):

Power on the computer. Tap the F2 key to enter System Setup when the Dell logo appears. If you have trouble entering Setup using this method, press F2 when the keyboard LEDs first flash. Try not to hold down the F2 key as this can sometimes be interpreted as a stuck key by the computer.

Some have noted difficulties in configuring DELL PCs to boot from a USB drive. You can research that for DELLs and your particular PC, but in the circumstances a DVD may be easier.

You can also create a bootable live boot disk on DVD if you wish. E.g. Bob Omb's, Hiren's, Kyhi's....
Live boot disks give you a familiar Win 10 GUI and lots of utilities.
This would allow you to check your disk, back up any files you can access that aren't backed up.

*** Checking your disk should be a priority given what you say e.g. a SMART check with Crystal Diskinfo (free) - often on such live boot disks.

There's no point attempting a clean install if the disk is duff.

I don't have a backup and I never set a restore point

Endlessly recommended here - the routine and regular use of disk imaging e.g. Macrium Reflect (free).
That would have given you a full backup and allowed you to recover your O/S to a new disk in a relatively routine manner.

You can also have e.g. Crystal Diskinfo running and set to alert you automatically to disk degradation, perhaps giving you the chance to take action in a timely manner.

You do need to prepare for bad situations - perhaps avoiding the need to seek help, and save yourself a load of time and difficulty.

clif9710 · 19 Oct 2021

Thanks for the info, Dalchina. I've used Hiren's stuff before and will get a bootable DVD going.

My terrible confession is that I have Reflect and with my old PC, just replaced, used it regularly to back up my main SSD to a backup SSD. With the new machine I was waiting to be sure I had everything as I wanted it before starting the backup process. Amazon, to its credit, told me to pick any SSD on Amazon of the same 1tB capacity and it sending it to me for free under the warranty that expires in only 2 weeks. Lucky in that at least.

Since my initial post I have taken the suspect SDD and placed it on yet another desktop. As with the original PC, Windows on boot immediately detects something wrong and attempts/fails to fix it, eliminating the original PC as a problem. Looking at the contents of the suspect SSD, everything looks good as far as my files, so I'd guess that something in the boot area went south. I will run one of the diagnostics you mentioned.

- - - Updated - - -

Hiren DVD from ISO being used.

SMART shows nothing wrong.

TestDisk shows nothing wrong with the partitions (all partitions get a green display), TestDisk documentation tells me that if the boot sector is corrupted, Windows will prompt "The drive is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?" Since Windows doesn't give me this prompt, I assume that boot sector is OK. TestDisk reports the boot sector and backup boot sector are identical. Ditto on the MFT and backup MFT.

On booting with the troubled SSD, after the Dell logo disappears, I get the Windows "attempting automatic repair", then "diagnosing" then "Automatic repair couldn't repair your PC" choosing the advanced options and selecting continue to recovery, a reboot is tried, "collecting data" with an unhappy face happens and I end up back at notification that automatic repair couldn't repair your PC.

The offerings given under "advanced options" refuse to work, such as rolling back updates. Instead I get "we ran into a problem and won't be able to uninstall..." In desperation, I tried resetting the system with my files preserved. The process appears to start with a percentage showing, but then fails with "we ran into a problem..."

dalchina · 20 Oct 2021

In desperation, I tried resetting the system with my files preserved. The process appears to start with a percentage showing, but then fails with "we ran into a problem..."

It may be that the problem lies within your registry I suppose, given the failure to reset.

Try booting your system from a Win 10 install disk (DVD I suppose in your case) and running Startup Repair.
Or does Hiren's have Macrium Reflect on it? - in which case use its Fix boot utility.

It's possible the report from the latter may provide a further indication.

clif9710 · 20 Oct 2021

unfortunately, this PC came with Win10 installed so I have no installation disk.

I ran Reflect boot repair from the Hiren DVD. Now, there is an endless loop...Dell logo, Windows logo with circling dots, black screen, then repeat. Before I did the Reflect boot repair there would be no repeat, ending in a black screen.

Registry...hummm. Glary utilities has a nice, and free, registry cleaner, but I checked and there is no ISO available for it.

I've contacted the company that refurbished this PC. It's still under warranty. They may be able to do something.

I downloaded and tried running Easy Recovery Essentials, which claims to fix just about anything that causes Win 10 to fail (are you smiling?) It does a lot of command line work, but alas it didn't help.

It occurred to me a virus might be at work, so I put the SSD on another PC and ran an antivirus check on it. Nothing found, but I only used one antivirus program. Viruses do tend to show themselves at boot time. I wonder if antivirus programs check the boot areas when testing a disk that is not the system disk running at the time of testing.

dalchina · 20 Oct 2021

unfortunately, this PC came with Win10 installed so I have no installation disk.

All builds of Win 10 are freely downloadable.

You can create a bootable DVD, disk or an iso file using the
MS media creation tool

(tenforums tutorial available).

I would guess your best bet is to clean install Win 10 on your new disk. You can recover what you need from the old one.

clif9710 · 21 Oct 2021

My adventures continue...

I created a recovery stick using the MS media tool, it took about 2.5 hours for the build on the stick to finish. I proceeded to attempt a clean install of Win10 on the brand new SSD I got from Amazon. Failure occurred at 7%, blue screen telling me installation could not continue. I tried it again with a different SSD, one I've had a while, as the target, failure occurred at 74%, same blue screen same message.

I then decided to try the process on a different desktop PC. Same failure at 74%. Thinking there might be an error on the software on the stick, I erased it and went through the same build process using the MS media tool: MediaCreationTool21H1.

And here is where things get very weird. This time the stick build took only 30 minutes with no progress bar, just a percentage though I was using the exact same MS media tool as before. When the process finished, I booted to the stick and got an entirely different screen from before, a clunky Win XP looking series of windows. When I told the process to start, it said it could not continue because the SSD used GPT instead of MBR! I tried the other SSD, same prompt.

None of this dialog occurred on the first go-round with the stick, all I got was the spinning dots and a percentage of progress. At no time did I do anything to change the SSD's to GPT. One was blank from Amazon and the other was one I had been using with Win10 in the past. I assume that with a clean install, the process will format a blank drive as needed.

So I fired up Hiren's DVD, started a partition manager and changed the GPT to MBR on the SSD. Then I tried the stick again. This time things proceeded with the clunky looking windows telling me what was happening and a progress bar. In only a few minutes it said Windows was loaded, updates were finished and a restart was needed. The progress bar was full. It did the restart and that resulted in a black screen with the flashing cursor at upper left and that's all folks.

Surely a Win10 fresh install cannot take only 15 minutes.

This is the page I am working from: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/soft...load/windows10

Back I go to try building the stick again...

dalchina · 21 Oct 2021

Clean installing Windows is to unallocated space on the disk. It rather sounds as if you're not doing that.

Windows creates its own partitions when installed normally.

The tenforums tutorial shows you around step 13/14 I think where you have the option to delete existing partitions.
Clean Install Windows 10

clif9710 · 21 Oct 2021

Went back to Hiren's DVD and used the partition software to clear the SSD of all partitions, and having it use MBR, leaving it for Windows to do with as it pleased. That worked. I'm in business. How the GPT assignment happened mystifies me.

MORAL OF MY STORY: both patience and backing up are virtues. It's also great to have a second PC/laptop to stay connected when the main machine is down.

The irony of this whole thing is that I religiously backed up for years, always having a mirror drive ready to go. Then I let it go for a few weeks and this happens.

Thanks for your help.

dalchina · 21 Oct 2021