My computer is down because of the all in one repair, please help me.

[ParanormalBanana]

Hello,

So I had problems with my computer so I ran the all in one repair.

It found reparse points problems and repaired them.

Then it ran sfc which found problems which were fixed

Then It says do you wanna make a restoration point ? I DID IT.

Then I hit the preset for all repairs.

I leave the computer alone, and when I came back, the screen was black with a big, low resolution cursor frozen in the middle of the screen, completely frozen and unresponsive.

I had to hit reset.

When I boot up my computer again, the same black screen with a cursor happens, in safe mode, safe mode w/ network, and normal mode as well. Same screen, no prompt for password, all black with big, pixellated cursor that I can move around and do absolutely nothing with it or the keyboard.

So I try to run system restore...

I then found that there was NO restore created ! I can only find a big windows 10 upgrade restore point, which I select, and then the restore fails claiming that I don't have enough disk space available for the restore.

So I'm stuck, please help.

[Boggin]

I've had the black screen and white cursor before on two occasions and the only thing that would boot up was a Kaspersky Rescue Disk and after its scan I was able to boot normally, although they weren't the result of running Windows Repair.

https://support.kaspersky.co.uk/viruses/rescuedisk

It has been reported that the repair program isn't actually creating a restore point but it does back up the registry.

Unfortunately you need to be able to open the program to restore with that.

If you have access to another machine you can create Win 10 install media to see if the machine will boot from that.

You can create the install media at https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 but read the instructions first as the procedure differs depending upon if you want to use a DVD or USB.

To change the boot order, press and hold F2 as you switch on then use the cursor keys to navigate to the Boot tab and then again to select the media you want to use and use F5 or F6 to move that to the top.

However, if using an UEFI BIOS you will need to disable Secure Boot to boot from external media.

Insert the install media - press F10 to Save and Exit - press enter to confirm.

If using a DVD then press any key when prompted to boot from CD/DVD.

You may be presented with an inverse window with Windows Setup (EMS Enabled) highlighted - just press enter.

Use the dropdown to change/confirm the Time and currency and navigate to the Install screen and click on Repair your computer.

Click on Troubleshoot and while you could use the Restore option to see if it will work from there, you can select Command Prompt to perform these cmds.

bootrec /fixmbr

bcdedit |find "osdevice" and then using the partition letter instead of the x I've used, enter chkdsk x: /r

For clarity that is a Pipe symbol before find and is the uppercase of \ and you need to use the bcdedit cmd because it doesn't always see the volume as in C: in that mode.

Its report will remain on screen.

Follow that cmd with this one, again using your partition letter instead of the X: I have used.

sfc /scannow /offbootdir=X:\ /offwindir=X:\Windows

Note the space before each /

Enter exit to close the cmd window, remove the install media and use the back arrow to Turn off the PC and see if it will boot normally, but let me know if either the chkdsk or the sfc reports any anomalies that it is unable to repair.

This is a valuable lesson learned that you need to get into the habit of creating regular system images onto external media such as onto an external HDD and then you would have been able to restore with that.

[ParanormalBanana]

Thank you for responding. I will try the kaspersky boot drive right away, but before that, I don't think it is necessary to repair the mbr, cause when I try to boot the system, it seems that it boots normally until I get the black screen instead of the session login screen, so I think that it's broken at this level but not in the mbr.

I tried command prompt already to do the sfc scannow, but it resulted in a error message, my pc is in french so it said something in french but it translates roughly into : sfc was not able to perform the operation.

[ParanormalBanana]

Thank you for your advice about creating regular images but can you go more into depth about doing this ? My rig is quite complicated so I figured it would be somewhat difficult to do, I have a main drive of 500 Go that is full of programs, and a second drive of 1To also full of programs, some of those are very important for my work. Those programs rely on several data banks that are filling a third drive of about 1 To, how do I save a system image of that ?

[Boggin]

You may only need to create a system image of your main drive that has your OS in it.

I use Macrium Reflect Free and its WPE disk to boot up with to restore from.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

I used this tutorial to learn how to use it - http://forum.webuser.co.uk/showthread.php?t=149443

[ParanormalBanana]

Thank you.

So I used the kaspersky rescue disk and upon entering the text mode, it showh a warning :

"Your computer's operating system has been shut down incorrectly. File system is going to be mounted. The procedure may cause damage to it. To avoid file system corruption, you are advised to shut down the operation system correclty before using Kaspersky Rescue Disk."

Do I continue or does this indicate something else that I should be able to do before ?

[Boggin]

I've never had that but I think it would be best to take heed of the warning and if you are able to create install media, then I'd go that route.

[ParanormalBanana]

Hello.

So here's the history since last time :

I was able to get my system back to where it was before running the all in one repair by restoring windows to a previous version of windows...

I was using insider builds and I happened to have installed one right before the event, so by using this function I could go back.

BUT...

I still had a very unstable system which was the original reason for using all in one repair.

So, I did a series of malware/rootkit scans and found nothing.

After that, I decided to run the all in one repair one more time.

Here are the steps :

1 : I went to system restore and freed up 50 Go to allocate (10%) to it and I then created not one, but TWO system restores, which took about 10 Go of disk space and I made sure they were created.

2 : I did a power reset of my whole apartment, cut the whole power out reset all devices and then I started ONLY the computer...

3 : I ran All in one repair in Safe mode with networking, as commended...

4 : All steps are going well, everything looks good, chkdsk and sfc scannow find nothing wrong, then I select the "all repairs" preset and it starts...

5 : I go to bed, come back and the black screen with white cursor and windows aero style timer are the only things I see (and I can move it)

So I'm back to the beginning but I'm thinking HEY NO PROBLEM I MADE SURE TO BE ABLE TO RUN SYSTEM RESTORE....


6 : Run system restore : NO RESTORES FOUND !

So my two restores have been deleted by all in one repair at some point, so now I'm pretty CERTAIN my problem is caused by all in ojne repair, but my safe return has also been burned by it 100% sure..

Of course I tried to use the go back to previous windows version stuff but it failed for no reason and no error code was given.

Now, I've been trying for hours to use the media creation tool to make a USB flash drive of Windows 10 to follow your instructions, but I am unable to !

The media creation tool gives me an error code i'll give to you later when it gives it to me again, but for now, I would very much appreciate it if you could link me to a windows 10 professional English x64 legit iso that I could use and maybe some new advice on how to deal wih this situation I've got a week's work late to do on that machine with a deadline on monday I really need your help sorry for the long post.

[Boggin]

Using Insider builds could be the reason why you are getting these black screens.

The program is only tested on released versions of Win 10 and somewhere Shane has warned about using it on Insider builds.

Do you have anything on that machine that you want to keep as a clean install looks to be the next solution and then through Settings you can go back to an Insider build.

I got an error when I was trying to create a bootable USB so had to opt for clicking on ISO file as for the DVD method but used Windows USB/DVD Burner Tool to create the bootable USB from the downloaded ISO.

I had to go back to the Download tool now page to access that option again.

You need to select Save when downloading the ISO file and it normally puts it into my Docs folder for some reason rather than my Downloads folder.

http://wudt.codeplex.com/

[ParanormalBanana]

Yes in fact everything on that machine is important to keep, I can't wipe the disk but I could do a "reset" while keeping documents and a list of programs but couldn't there be another solution ? isn't there a way to get back the system restores that were wiped for no reason at all ?

[Boggin]

Not once they are gone.

I'd boot up with the install media and perform the chkdsk /r and offboot sfc /scannow to see if they will return things to normal but I don't have any experience of an Insider build or how they react.

There's also Startup Repair to try but I've never had any faith in it.

The install media will be for version 1709 16299.0 so there could be a problem with it accepting it as it needs to match the version that is installed.

However, you may be able to create suitable boot media using the steps in this article if the 1709 16299.0 isn't accepted.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/96555-windows-insider-clean-install-latest-fast-ring-build.html