Update and now PC can not be repaired

Unfortunately, I do not know what updates were being performed on my system, I just let it do its magic overnight and the next day was greeted with an "Automatic Repair" screen. The update occurred on Dec 12 2016.



This is Win10 x64 Pro.



My background - I am a computer engineer and have worked at IBM and Dell in their PC and server development and service groups. I am good at isolating issues and debug. Looking for guidance on best paths to take so that I can bypass any dead ends I may go down as I try to resolve.



First issue (this is resolved, but I include it in the event others might search for these terms and this would come up):

I could not select the buttons "Restart" or "Advanced Options" on this screen. I had to plug in a PS/2 keyboard into my computer for this screen to work. Crazy. I remember buying this board a couple of years ago and wondering why they included a PS/2 port. Glad they did and that I had a PS/2 keyboard in my attic. Not a workaround for the common computer owner I realize, but if you are lucky enough to use a PS/2 keyboard, this is the solution. I tried my wireless USB and a wired USB keyboard. Both were functional in that I could get into my UEFI and boot select screens. They 'stopped' working at this automatic repair screen (although the wired USB keyboard still reacted to the caps lock and num lock events, thus indicating the interrupts were handled, and we are lacking a USB driver). The lack of a functional USB driver at this screen is unbelievable. People in this situation don't need another problem to resolve.



Second (and further) issue is that I cannot repair the system. Restore points come back with an error in some file. Apparently, Norton may be to blame for some of this. If that is the case, I'm sure Norton and Microsoft pointing fingers at each other - nothing I can do about that. I then went into the command prompt to see if I could restore an MBR or something. It appears, however, that this shell 'hides' my typical boot drive. First, it creates a drive called X:. Second, when I go to the C: drive and do a 'dir' it has no files in it. So, either it is completely wiped or this is some pseudo-c:\ drive. Going into diskpart and doing a 'list volume' I get:

Volume 0 J DVDROM
Volume 1 K DVDROM
Volume 2 C "System Rese" NTFS Partition 100MB Healthy
Volume 3 G <no label> NTFS Partition 237GB Healthy
Volume 4 H <no label> NTFS Partition 450MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 5 D "Apps" NTFS Partition 1464GB Healthy
Volume 6 E "Data" NTFS Partition 1329GB Healthy
Volume 7 F "Hold1500" NTFS Partition



My typical boot drive is a 256GB SSD, so I believe that has become the G drive in this environment, although I could have sworn I had a label for it.



So, what do you experts recommend as next steps? I do have another functional (unless it has updated too?) Win10 system, so I can pull the broken boot drive over to it and play around.



Also, assuming I have to go into a re-install route, this was from a Win7x64 Ultimate install, so I don't have a Win10 install disk. Do I install Win7 (reusing my product key) and then have it upgrade to Win10? I thought the win10 upgrade was a limited time offer. Or, is there a Win10 install disk that accepts Win7 product keys (doubtful)?



Thank you,
Paul

Pauley said:

...assuming I have to go into a re-install route, this was from a Win7x64 Ultimate install, so I don't have a Win10 install disk. Do I install Win7 (reusing my product key) and then have it upgrade to Win10? I thought the win10 upgrade was a limited time offer. Or, is there a Win10 install disk that accepts Win7 product keys (doubtful)?

Win7 Ultimate would have been upgraded to Win10 Pro. On activation a Digital Licence was recorded on Microsoft's activation servers. If the original Win7 was an OEM version this licence is tied to the hardware of your PC. 'Hardware' doesn't include the hard drive, so you can change this for a new one without problems.

Windows 10 install media can be downloaded from Microsoft, either by using the Media Creation Tool or downloading an iso directly.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...-download.html

Do a clean install of the same edition as your digital licence (Home or Pro). When asked for a key, skip this for now (click 'I don't have one'). When the system boots up it will check with the MS activation servers and activate automatically.

If your Win7 key is for a full retail version (not an OEM one) then it can be used to activate Windows 10, but you probably won't need to use this route.
Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First

A full licence can be linked to your Microsoft Account to make it easier to transfer from old to new hardware, should you need to replace the motherboard for example. OEM licences are not transferable and are supposed to be tied to the machine first installed on.
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...ows-10-pc.html

I would recommend you make a bootable drive of Kyhi's recovery tools:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

Read my quote in the middle of the OP to see how to convert a Windows 10 installation USB to boot into Kyhi's Recovery Tools if you have one already made.

You can use file explorer to verify if you Windows 10 normal partition is still intact and you can see the files there. Then run Macrium Reflect included and select the utility to fix Windows Startup problems.

Thanks for your insights. I'll give the recovery tools a try.

Paul

NavyLCDR said:

I would recommend you make a bootable drive of Kyhi's recovery tools:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums
You can use file explorer to verify if you Windows 10 normal partition is still intact and you can see the files there. Then run Macrium Reflect included and select the utility to fix Windows Startup problems.

Okay - possibly progressing.

First, for whatever reason, I could not make a bootable USB. Had to make a DVD. Probably the tool (Windows USB DVD ISO whatever).

Some good news, under the Kyhi Windows shell, the disk is readable, everything seems to be there, and from the command prompt, chkdsk found absolutely nothing.

Ran Macrium to fix the start up problems. It did its thing, and now when I boot I get a boot manager (I didn't have this set up before). It gives me a choice of Windows 10 Pro or Microsoft Windows XP.

Hitting Win10Pro, I get a "Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause......" It then says it could not find werkernel.sys with a status of 0xc000007b. Basically, that file is missing or has errors.

I guess I can try to copy that file (and any future ones) from my other PC that is still functional. But, again, wonder if there is a better way.

Hitting WinXP just causes the system to reboot. Still not sure where this boot menu selection came from.