Windows 10: :( DISM (Error 0x800f081f) and SFC (Failed to Repair)

FWIW to those out there, I had a nightmare problem upgrading my laptop to Windows 10... all sorts of failures and errors, and then once I got upgraded and ported over to a SSD, I had all these issues with the start button etc, not working. Couldn't get the DISM to correct anything, SFC failed to do anything.

Finally I did the in place upgrade to my existing Win 10 installation as mentioned in a few posts on this thread and it worked like a charm!

I used Media Creation tool to create a bootable USB, ran startup while logged in, selected to keep all my files in place. It ran while I was on my lunch break and now everything works great!

 

I'm glad that worked for you! And, Welcome to Tenforums!

 

Torre, if you are still out there, IronZorg had perhaps a poor choice of words, but I think what could be better said is that it might not seem at first like you have a serious problem; however, once there are system files shown as corrupted by SFC, even just a little, those errors have a way of catching up to you later in a nasty way. Sometimes the effects are only minor at first. The longer the situation is allowed to continue, however, the more problems can develop, and greater the corruption that can occur. You may end up not being able to get good enough access to your computer later to do the repair. So it is better to do it now, before things go downhill.

 

Most answers to the original question of this thread seem to have gone towards using the in-place upgrade solution, because of the failure to get DISM to work. Post #36 very nicely brought the thread back to the original issue--which was: Is it possible to make the DISM + SFC repair work? Is there a reason why the answer proposed in #36 is not a good answer for many or most of those who have this error message with DISM and SFC?

 

A few weeks ago my computer started giving me all sorts of issues, not booting, booting and freezing, giving me error message whenever I tried to use cmd.exe, or not letting me use it with administrator privileges and a whole host of nightmares. Sometimes it would boot and work correctly, at least for awhile, and sometimes it was no joy and I would have to manually turn it off and back on. I always back files up to an external hard drive but sure didn't want the expenses and hassle of buying a new computer. In the meantime, I kept getting messages that windows was not able to update.

Occasionally the error message would center on kernel and I thought I had a corrupted sector on my HD or a corrupted file. I ran chkdsk /r and that did not help. I then tried SFC and that didn't help. Doing further research, I ran DISM with repair options and that didn't work but it gave me an error code that led to this thread.

I tried to do what was suggested here by creating a thumb drive ISO to run it's setup from the machine Windows 10 to update but it repeatedly would hang up and not finish the set-up at 11 or 12%. Then I did further research and discovered an MS tool that will fix issues that prevent updating.

It is found at: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...troubleshooter

I ran the trouble shooter and it reported that it fixed the issues. I then was able to do the update from the thumb drive's set-up and all my files and apps are intact.

I am hoping that has cured the issues.

 

Another thread which addresses the original issue of this thread perhaps more completely is here:

DISM - Repair Windows 10 Image - Windows 10 Forums

However, what I found to be the issue that got in the way and confused myself and many other people, and caused a DISM repair to fail, is that the image file has to be of the exact same Version (e.g. Ver. 1511, Ver. 1607, etc.) as the Win 10 system being repaired. This also answers the question I asked about 3 weeks ago here, above (in #48): I asked, Isn't the answer in #36 a good answer? In fact, No, that answer was not quite good enough for some of us, because it doesn't mention that the downloaded image has to be of the same Version.

Jackcutrone, I'm glad you were able to get your problem resolved, but it sounds to me like what you had going on was even more serious and complicated than the original problem stated here. But for future reference, I suggest you check out Brink's tutorial in the thread I cited above.

 

Thank you for this useful information.
It worked nicely.

 

Is that not what I said ???
Basically just run the installer from within your current windows