Use DISM to Repair Windows 10 Image  

Hi all,

Let me apologize first as it will be a lengthy post.
Sadly I have to join the club of people with DISM issues but I will start from the beginning.
Friend asked me to have a look at his PC as after updates his network stopped working completely. When nothing seemed to help, th last resort at that stage was to do the full reset of the network- once it was started he decided that it takes too long and powered down the PC using the power button. After starting it up again the explorer didn't seem to work so another restart was performed after which the system never started again: got to the windows logo, then to the black screen with spinning circle and after a minute it is restarting. I've tried anything I could've find and eventually I discovered DISM. Full of hope I decided to give it a go, how silly of me, thinking it will be straightforward.
So obviously I'm stuck with the dreaded 'the source file could not be found' error. As I cannot access the system even in safe mode I'm trying to work on the offline image.

I tried with wim/esd files from newer installation files, before I found that the build should be the same.
After long search I'va managed to find the same build (10.0.19041.1) but still have no luck.
-I've mounted the wim file on the hard drive and used it as a source- no luck
-I've installed this build on a spare hard drive to use it as a source- still no luck (tried pointing source to windows file (as well as winsxs as seen on some other forum) either on fresh image or after windows updates were installed
-Tried to run DISM on the working build to repair the offline image (thinking that perhaps access to internet could help), but this also did not help.
Tried all of the combinations for DISM syntax I could find:
DISM /image:e:\ /cleanup-image /restorehealth /source:h:\sources\install.wim:3
"/limitaccess" is not necessary as I have no network in WinRE, tried that as well though
"/image:e:\offline" - got error that couldn't access image
"/source:wim:h:\install.wim:3" - didn't seem to make any difference

I guess there's something I have not mentioned but it have now been 2 weeks and countless hours of work with no results at all- just because firend have some software on it he no longer have the keys for.

The 'scanhealth' and 'checkhealth' commands both shown that the component store is repairable, sfc performed the scan but shown that some of the files could not have been repaired.

get-wiminfo is showing the version 10.0.19041 (without .1) but once I've installed the system on a spare drive, winver shows 19041.1 so I assume it is a correct one.

Is there any chance that anyone may have the WIM file for this build in case my is corrupted (although it seemed fine when mounted)? Could you perhaps give me some hints is there anything else I can try? Or is it dead and I'm just wasting my time trying to resurrect it?

Any help will be much appreciated

Solti said:

after updates his network stopped working completely.

What updates? Cumulative updates? Driver updates? Critical updates? Definition updates?
Run the following batch script provided by the BSOD team and post the output.

getWindowsUpdateList.bat

Source: Batch files for use in BSOD debugging

Can you access the desktop on the PC in question?

Matthew Wai said:

Can you access the desktop on the PC in question?

Not a desktop per se, can access the files on it through the command prompt in the recovery mode (or through the separate system which I set up on the other drive), nothing else. When starting the PC it never loads the faulty system, it restarts and goes into recovery mode- that's all I have.

Solti said:

it restarts and goes into recovery mode- that's all I have.

Have you tried the options "Startup Repair", "Uninstall Updates", and "System Restore" below?



Source: Boot to Advanced Startup Options in Windows 10

Yes I have indeed tried all the options from the recovery menu. Couldn't fix the start up, the updates were uninstalled but no progress there, couldn't restore as there was no restore points available.
Thanks

Solti said:

"/source:wim:h:\install.wim:3" - didn't seem to make any difference

Did you try the following?

/source:wim:h:\sources\install.wim:3