Windows 10: Help with machine stuck on update with rotating dots

I have been using win 10 for quite a long time and am happy with it. This evening when I was opening up a word document it behaved strangely . I could shut it down but after that everything stopped working. Ctrl alt delete wont respond. I had to shut down the computer using the Power button. When I restarted the computer . It immediately went into update mode screen with the usual configuring windows and warning about not shutting down the computer .The screen is orange with circulating dots. ( first time I see an orange screen , its usually blue) .At the beginning there was a short indication of % like about 35% but now only circulating dots . Nothing else works . Its already been running for 1/2 hour or so. I will leave it overnight to see whether I can get to the log in screen.

What to do if I cant get to the log in screen ? Without log in screen I cant get to system restore? Is there a way to boot into recovery mode? I do have a Macrium image and a Macrium recovery flash drive. Will windows recognize this thumb drive on boot or do I have to boot into Bios first to change order of boot . I wonder if its even possible to do this ?

Alternatively can make and use win 10 recovery flash drive from another window 10 machine ?

Please advise. Tks

:)

 

Stuck on blue screen with rotating white dots for hours

Hi,

As you are facing issue with startup, I suggest you to follow the methods provided below and check it helps.

Method 1: Perform a Power Drain.

• Shut down the Computer.
• Remove all power source (including battery if it is a laptop).
• Press and hold the power button for 15-20 seconds.
• Connect the power source and start the computer.
• After the computer boots to the desktop, suggest you to install all the pending updates.

Method 2: Perform Startup Repair.

• Go to the Microsoft software download website and create Windows 10
  installation media.
• Insert the installation media you created, and then restart your PC.
• On the Install Windows screen, select Repair your computer.
• On the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot>Advanced Options.
• Click on Startup Repair.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted on the status for further assistance.

 

Stuck on blue screen with rotating white dots for hours

I have an Alienware Alpha and a couple of days ago, I started having this problem that whenever the PC was restarted or turned off, upon turning back on and after the computer booted Windows back up, I would be stuck at this blue screen with rotating white
dots in the center. The only way out of it was pressing ctrl+alt+del and that brought me to the login screen but there was no field for the password or anything, just the icons for internet, accessibility and power in the bottom right hand corner.

I scanned other articles online and the consensus was that it was a problem with a cumulative update released by Windows and that the way to fix it was to let it sit for a few hours until it lets you log in, and then disable fast boot.

But it still doesn't work. It still makes me sit at the blue screen with the rotating dots for at LEAST 2 hours before it lets me log in.

I don't know how to fix this and it is super frustrating because I haven't been able to use my PC for a few days now and I can't seem to find a solution to this problem. Any suggestions?

 

The Recovery Drive option using an 8gb or larger flash drive is an option used when you are not able to bring up the F8 boot menu and recovery options/tools. I keep a small flash drive that goes onto a key chain initially made last summer I could still use on the latest Insider Preview build as well as on the November 11th Threshold 2 Update on the two desktops here. The second desktop runs the Insider builds as well as on the VMs both machines see while the main build's host/boot drive sees the TH2 Update here and yet both machines can still use the flash drive since the recovery options and tools are still the same!

The same would apply for you there. With an update having a problem being stuck a boot up in Safe mode and back into Windows normally should help to clear that up since the Windows update tool is stuck at the moment. If the update is non essential you can simply hide it while looking the list of available once back in the normal desktop.

 

Here what I did. I booted into repair advanced options and selected system restore .(since this is a HP AIO computer I pressed ESC repeatedly on computer start|) Restore process detected disk errors . I chose option to repair disk. After disk repair is completed , I clicked on next but it keeps getting into disk repair loop so I exited program . I was returned to system restore screen . I then restarted the restore again and chose an earlier restore point. It started the restore process but then failed to restore . Do I have a crashed HDD ?

At this point can I even use Macrium Image to restore since I may have a bad disk?

I managed to restore computer to an earlier restore point after I ran HP System diagnostics. I got to the restore process which asked me for password which was not there when I first tried to restore. After I entered my password the restore proceeded smoothly.

 

Well at least you are making some progress despite the run around you had to go through! This is one reason why I have always preferred to stick with custom builds to avoid all the OEM blunders while recently I had to add laptops in over the last now 4yrs. into the mix with their batches of OEM blunderments like not being able to get into the actual bios program itself or bring up a boot menu until switching from HP to Toshiba that is with the replacement 10 laptop that replaced the older 7 upgraded to 10 HP model.

The question now will be has the looping problem been cleared up? Have you tried restarting the machine a few times to verify that Windows will now be able to start up without a glitch?

The diagnostic tool show disk errors would not come as any surprise while seeing the Disk Check scheduled is now possible and would be recommended to have the Windows tool scan the drive on the next startup to rule out any further problems. Often the partition information as well as boot loader can get a little lost at times where Windows could stall with all that being software still.

The way to get that going immediately but not as thorough as scheduling a run of the tool is done quckly by right clicking on any drive's(hard drive not optical or other unless external HD) icon seen in any explorer window and opening up the Tools tab on the Properties screen and then simply clicking on the Error checking button and......





Something new since 7 is you now will see a message as to whether or not you even need to run the tool appear. To get past this however and still see the drive tool scheduled to run you simply right click on the Start button instead to bring up that right click menu and scroll down to the Command prompt(admin) option which equals the Elevated command prompt with elevated permissions. You then simply type "chkdsk /r/f" with the two switches added onto the command being R for Repair and F for Fix. Once you type that in and hit the enter/return key you will then see the confirmation message in the window for it being scheduled to run on the next startup. It will take several minutes and timing will depend somewhat on the size of the drive itself. It's an old tool that still does a great job however at seeing problems cleaned up quickly!