Windows 10: File System Error (-1073741521)

Ladies and Gentlemen,


I am in a bit of a pickle, and I hope someone might help me sort it out. The following text might NOT be complete and chronologically ordered, as most of the actions taken to correct the issue have been carried out before Christmas (busy time of year, didn't have time to pick up after, memory might be blurry).


I have a Win 10 PRO machine, an ultrabook running an i7-3537U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD. I can start Windows and log on, but that's where the problems start.


I noticed that suddenly File System Error (-1073741521) started popping up, preventing me from running anything with Administrative Privileges and preventing me from running executable files. When running Office programs (in particular), I get MSIMG32.dll is missing, although if I get to its path manually, it is safe and sound in its place. I can create files, use notepad (which is weirdly enough an executable).


I do not remember whether I have installed anything prior to that (like Windows Update for example), but I am almost firmly convinced that it could not have been the result of malicious code being ran without my knowledge on this machine. I cannot correlate the error showing up to anything I've done.


Steps taken to correct the action, in somewhat chronological order:


1. From my administrative account on the machine: nothing because I cannot run any executables (except notepad...).


2. From another administrative account on the machine: nothing, because although I can run executables, I cannot run elevated ones.


3. From external Windows Installation Media (USB):

• Windows Startup Repair fails miserably.
• chkdsk /f /r - identified errors and fixed them, hard disk is healthy.
• sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=C:\windows - found errors, returned error message that "was unable to fix some of them".
  
• dism /image:C:\offline /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth could not repair because it lacked sources. After extracting install.wim and specifying it as a source, it still says it cannot find the sources (I have extracted Win 10 PRO from the esd, to wim).

4. From Safe Mode (actually took me a while to figure out how to put W10 in Safe Mode, shame on me):


The exact same things happen, just that this time dism gets through to 80% or so and then fails because (I imagine) it attempts to contact to the update server, and that service is disabled in Safe Mode (Error 1084 - this service cannot be started in safe mode). If I specify the source and use /limitaccess so it does not contact the update server...yes, it still fails because it cannot find the sources. It MIGHT be that I have not extracted the right version from the ESD, or that I have not used the command properly (never had to in 30 years actually), but it is somewhat confusing.


Could I perhaps force it to use Windows Update?

Going on:

Scans by Norton, MalwareBytes and Windows MSRT find no tampering with files.


I know that Repair is an option, and a valid one at that, but not for me. I must save this machine in this exact state.


I'm still going around in circles from Safe Mode to offline booting, trying the same things over and over again. Is there anyone around here that might be interested in scratching their heads together with me on this one and who also has the patience to deal with someone stubborn enough to try and fix it, not simply drop it and reinstall it?


If so, what info/logs/partial logs could I provide? I have not had the patience to go through Event Viewer yet, to see if that shows anything. Not sure it logs for more than a week anyway.


Thank you so much in advance and Happy Holidays folks!


Duke

:)

 

File system error 1073741521

That might work if all system programs didn't result in file sys error -1073741521; as does rstrui.

 

File system error (-1073741521)

Sir,

Because of this File system error (-1073741521) I cannot install any aplication on my pc . Even when I tried to run windows creation tool it showed same error.

Please help me

 

File system error (-1073741521)

For us to make sure where does issue is coming from, we suggest that you create a new user on your computer. Make it as an administrator account. If the issue persists on the new user account, we suggest that you run a system restore by following the steps
below:

• Open the Control Panel.
• In the Search Control Panel box, type in Recovery.
• Select Recovery.
• Select Open System Restore and click on Next.
• Choose the restore point when your computer is on a good known state.

Let us know how it goes.