HP Pavilion 20 All-In-One....no Windows boot and can't run sfc scannow

Hi all - working on an HP Pavilion 20 all-in one for a friend. I don't know much about it other than it's running a version of Win10. I can't tell you what version of Win10 as I can't boot to check.

She's an elderly lady in her mid-80s so can't really tell me anything about what happened as all she uses it for is email, basic internet browsing and some specialist software she no longer has the disks for that has something to do with an automated cross-stitch machine that plugs into the computer through USB. I don't want to have to wipe the PC unless I have to as she doesn't have the disks to reinstall the software, so that would be a big issue for her.

When you try to boot into Windows, it just gives a bluescreen with a 'bad system config info' error. You can't boot into Safe Mode as it just gives the same error.....so I tried booting to the Recovery Menu on the hard drive and going into the command prompt.

Running a 'chkdsk /f /r' says that it found no issues - great! On to the next thing...

Running a basic 'sfc /scannow' command just gives a 'Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.' error.....I tried it with the 'sfc /scannow /offbootdir etc' command as well and that also gives the same error any idea how to get this error solved so I can run sfc /scannow and see if it finds any issues...?

Thanks!

Hi, with an unknown PC I would also boot it from a live boot disk (Hiren's, Bob Omb's, Kyhi's....) and check the disk(s).
Crystal Diskinfo (basic SMART check) may be available on the live boot disk else there's a portable version.
You can then also browse the internal disk, and view its partitions - there should be a partition manager on the live boot disk.

Note that you can't run an in-place upgrade repair unless you can boot normally.

Regarding fhe offline execution of SFC /SCANNOW, there may be a bit more to it.
When viewed from the command prompt, the system partition may no longer be C: - you need to check.

Run SFC Command in Windows 10
should help.



You can boot from a Win 10 install disk, via repair your computer, and so on to Startup Repair and see what that reports.

MaloK said:

Hi,

This computer is nearly 10 years old, This could come from a failing Hard, disk bad memory other HW issues and / or system and registry files or the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) corruption.

If you can verify if the HDD and ram are good with adequate software, before moving forward.

If the drive is reported as solid, you can try to Use the "Windows Startup Repair" from "Advanced Startup Options"

And for the stitching machine software. with the make and model you can probably still find it somewhere on the web.

Booting from a Linux Live USB shows that the HDD's health via SMART is still showing as solid. Win10 has tried to do the Startup Repair repeatedly automatically and fails every time.

- - - Updated - - -

dalchina said:

Hi, with an unknown PC I would also boot it from a live boot disk (Hiren's, Bob Omb's, Kyhi's....) and check the disk(s).
Crystal Diskinfo (basic SMART check) may be available on the live boot disk else there's a portable version.
You can then also browse the internal disk, and view its partitions - there should be a partition manager on the live boot disk.

Note that you can't run an in-place upgrade repair unless you can boot normally.

Regarding fhe offline execution of SFC /SCANNOW, there may be a bit more to it.
When viewed from the command prompt, the system partition may no longer be C: - you need to check.

Run SFC Command in Windows 10
should help.



You can boot from a Win 10 install disk, via repair your computer, and so on to Startup Repair and see what that reports.

Hi Dalchina,

As mentioned in my post, I've already tried the 'sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=D:\windows' command appropriately and get the same error.

There is no System Reserved partition, so I am pretty sure the Windows and boot drives are one in the same....I've tried 'sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=C:\windows' therefore, and still get the same 'could not perform the requested operation' error.

As for 'Note that you can't run an in-place upgrade repair unless you can boot normally.' - yup, knew that already! :)


I'll see if I can get it to boot from a Windows 10 USB and report back.

I DO have an older copy of Hiren's....I believe it's got MiniXP on it...is that what I should boot from? This is Win10, after all...? Could you link me to a more recent version I should use?

MaloK said:

Do you have restore points available ?
If that doesn't succeed, You can try to do a Windows reset,

Then if all fails An in place repair upgrade.

Hi MaloK!

No Restore Points sadly....first thing I checked!

Reset would remove her software, which I don't want to do as I can't find a version of the software that her stitcher runs anywhere online.

An in-place repair upgrade only works if I can get it to boot, right?

You could create a Macrium Reflect bootable disk (MR is sometimes on a live boot disk) and try its Fix boot utility.

I suspect it will fail, but what it reports will be indicative.

Hiren's - or similar- just use Google.

OK - tried booting from the most recent Win10 USB created with the Media Creation Tool and ran sfc /scannow again - same error message.

Booting from Hiren's now. Any specific tools in Hiren's I should be trying?

- - - Updated - - -

SIW2 said:

Sounds like a problem with the registry - most likely the system hive.

Ideally you would retrieve previous good hives from a system image or a shadow copy or from windows/system32/config/regback



If she doesnt have any of those, there is a convoluted workaround that can be tried.

OK, I will try that next if I can't get Hirens to help!