Hello all,
This looks like a forum that can actually help me because there seems to be folks with a lot of technical knowledge beyond Windows O.S. (ex: MBR, etc.) so I'm very happy to have found you!
I'm running Win 10 Home and have a 1TB HD with c:\ and d:\ on it (I can't honestly remember how the partitions are setup... I bought the laptop used a few years ago so didn't really look at this).
Here's what happened and what I tried. A couple weeks ago my laptop did the latest major Win 10 feature update plus some security fixes. Everything went fine and I used my laptop for a day without any issues. I woke up the next day to see my screen black and my system seemed to be frozen which has happened before and the only thing I can do is power my laptop down. When it started to boot it went into "diagnosing pc" and then "repairing pc" (or something to that effect). I just let this go without touching it. It went through this loop where it would attempt to repair then reboot then diagnose then repair then reboot. After about 12 hours I thought maybe it was stuck in a loop (I read this online) but I left it and it eventually broke out of it (or maybe I did something to break the loop) and then popped up the familiar "can't fix pc" and the options such as Repair, Advanced, Command Prompt, etc..
My first thought was to try the command prompt to see if I could get to my personal files. When I launched the prompt it started in x:\sources. When I tried switching to c:\ it gave me something like "insufficient resources". I know this can be associated with low disk space but I had 197GB available before the latest update. I could get to d:\ without any trouble but there's nothing on it.
Then I tried the recovery options. There was recover from partition, restore (which gives the option for a clean install or keep files), remove latest installed files and go to latest restore point. All of these failed. I have had crashes before where windows became corrupted but I was always able to restore my system using one of these methods. Now I'm in uncharted territory.
One other thing I tried from a youtube video I came across was to get to your c:\ by launching the command prompt which brings you to x:\sources and then launching notepad then do a "file/open" and select "This PC" which brings up all of your drives. This did and I was able to click into my d:\ drive (no surprise) but my c:\ drive wasn't clickable nor did it report disk usage like the others (ex: 197GB free of 1TB). I can see this looking at my d:\ drive (it says 450MB free of 1GB). The youtube video said works with Win 7 and Win 8 so maybe this doesn't work with Win 10 (tighter security) or there is something wrong with my c:\ drive.
So now I'm trying to figure out what could be wrong. I came across these two great articles:
I don't think it's the MBR but maybe I'm wrong. In looking at the second page (Infinite loop) I think it's more related to either Cause #1: Damaged or corrupted BCD settings or Cause #2: Corrupted boot partition. Although maybe it's something else?
I downloaded the Windows media creation tool and have made a bootable USB which I have launched but have not done anything with it because I'm trying to figure out if I can reinstall Windows this way without losing my files. Having said that I have a feeling it might fail regardless if there are partition issues.
I'm hoping someone can guide me as to what the issues might be. If you need me to try anything else to get more info let me know or if getting screenshots helps.
Thanks!
Karen
This looks like a forum that can actually help me because there seems to be folks with a lot of technical knowledge beyond Windows O.S. (ex: MBR, etc.) so I'm very happy to have found you!
I'm running Win 10 Home and have a 1TB HD with c:\ and d:\ on it (I can't honestly remember how the partitions are setup... I bought the laptop used a few years ago so didn't really look at this).
Here's what happened and what I tried. A couple weeks ago my laptop did the latest major Win 10 feature update plus some security fixes. Everything went fine and I used my laptop for a day without any issues. I woke up the next day to see my screen black and my system seemed to be frozen which has happened before and the only thing I can do is power my laptop down. When it started to boot it went into "diagnosing pc" and then "repairing pc" (or something to that effect). I just let this go without touching it. It went through this loop where it would attempt to repair then reboot then diagnose then repair then reboot. After about 12 hours I thought maybe it was stuck in a loop (I read this online) but I left it and it eventually broke out of it (or maybe I did something to break the loop) and then popped up the familiar "can't fix pc" and the options such as Repair, Advanced, Command Prompt, etc..
My first thought was to try the command prompt to see if I could get to my personal files. When I launched the prompt it started in x:\sources. When I tried switching to c:\ it gave me something like "insufficient resources". I know this can be associated with low disk space but I had 197GB available before the latest update. I could get to d:\ without any trouble but there's nothing on it.
Then I tried the recovery options. There was recover from partition, restore (which gives the option for a clean install or keep files), remove latest installed files and go to latest restore point. All of these failed. I have had crashes before where windows became corrupted but I was always able to restore my system using one of these methods. Now I'm in uncharted territory.
One other thing I tried from a youtube video I came across was to get to your c:\ by launching the command prompt which brings you to x:\sources and then launching notepad then do a "file/open" and select "This PC" which brings up all of your drives. This did and I was able to click into my d:\ drive (no surprise) but my c:\ drive wasn't clickable nor did it report disk usage like the others (ex: 197GB free of 1TB). I can see this looking at my d:\ drive (it says 450MB free of 1GB). The youtube video said works with Win 7 and Win 8 so maybe this doesn't work with Win 10 (tighter security) or there is something wrong with my c:\ drive.
So now I'm trying to figure out what could be wrong. I came across these two great articles:
Fix the MBR – Guide for Windows 10, 11, XP, Vista, 7, 8
This guide shows you how to fix the Master boot record (MBR) in any of the Windows versions: Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows XP, Vista, 7, or Windows 8. What is the MBR The MBR (stands for “M…
neosmart.net
Startup Repair Infinite Loop: Fix for Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1
Get the fix for the infinite Startup Repair loop error for the following Windows versions: Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1. This error prevents you from accessing anything on you…
neosmart.net
I don't think it's the MBR but maybe I'm wrong. In looking at the second page (Infinite loop) I think it's more related to either Cause #1: Damaged or corrupted BCD settings or Cause #2: Corrupted boot partition. Although maybe it's something else?
I downloaded the Windows media creation tool and have made a bootable USB which I have launched but have not done anything with it because I'm trying to figure out if I can reinstall Windows this way without losing my files. Having said that I have a feeling it might fail regardless if there are partition issues.
I'm hoping someone can guide me as to what the issues might be. If you need me to try anything else to get more info let me know or if getting screenshots helps.
Thanks!
Karen