Windows 10: It crashed, then I made it worse (Legacy->UEFI) on bad advice.

Hello all,
So, I updated to Win 10 three weeks ago. All was fine until my system froze yesterday evening. I did a hard reboot, but after the initial Win 10 loading screen I got a blue loading screen that blinked endlessly like it was having a seizure. After multiple unsuccessful reboots and an inability to find "safe mode" I looked online with another machine. There I found some posts that seemed similar in nature to my problems. Stupidly, perhaps, I followed the advice given. First I entered boot options (F12) and changed from Legacy to UEFI. Then, per the advice, I restarted the PC twice to initialize Windows Recovery Mode (or whatever it's called). From there I chose to do a system restore. That failed saying that the file was deleted at some point (no other restore points were available). I rebooted again to try safe mode, but I got a message that my hard drives were being checked for errors and repaired. When done, the system started normally, for about 1 minute. After that it began an endless cycle of automatic refreshing. I've also lost function of the start button, all folders close with each "refresh," the Win 10 settings seems to have reverted in look and functionality to Win 7, etc.

At this point I found TenForums. Currently I've run sfc/scannow twice (with system shutdown after each and "fast startup" disabled, per advice I found here). The sfc scan reveals several issues that it cannot repair (I'll try to attach the log file here).

At this point I'm worried I've made a terrible mistake switching from Legacy to UEFI (while being the computer illiterate buffoon that I seem to be) without doing it properly. I also need to get functionality of my PC back, stop the endless refreshing, make sure everything is fine. Basically I need help. I would greatly appreciate any given.

Thank you.

:)

 

"defaultuser0" created on clean install of Anniversary Update

You are welcome. Yes, UEFI install failure usually means bad support in the hardware for UEFI. So in these cases going with legacy boot is the best option.

 

cannot start my windows 10 destop lenovo computer

there are both on the usb win 10 stick legacy and uefi

At the time it crashed this time i was busy downloading Support Bridge from Lenovo

 

Interesting,because normally switching boot modes, it would not boot at all into windows, and the advice would be to set it back to have the system see the drive, etc.

So, it sounds like you switched, and then windows got reset or reset.

If it's booting to 10 now, can you try a reset of windows itself?

 

Yes, right after the switch the next reboot bypassed the usual Dell logo and F4/F12 options, went straight to the Win loading icon, and the rest is as described in my post.

I'll try the reset and get back to you.

EDIT:: I didn't realize I'd be losing all "apps" in doing so. Is there another method to try first? I'll do it if absolutely needed, but I'd rather try something less drastic if possible.

 

Hello,

As I'm having trouble with my PC and I posted about it on another forum here, someone suggested I do a system reset. I'm choosing not to for now as I'd rather not lose all the accumulated software from over the years. I thought maybe using this Win 10 reinstall, but when I try to download the "upgrade" from Microsoft's site it simply tells me "Thank you for installing Windows 10."

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks.

Btw, I'm using "step 6" below because that's how I originally downloaded and installed Win 10.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

 

This is very weird. I started the PC in safe mode and found it was completely stable, so I started the PC again normally and all problems have vanished. No auto-refresh, no auto-shut down of folders, no problems starting up, nothing. I don't really know if I can consider this "solved" (especially since it's only been about 10 minutes since it restarted with no issues), but it's on, it's functional, and it seems OK for now.

I don't know what to say.

 

Booting to safe mode and back into normal mode, believe it or not, was a workaround recommended by MS. I forget what issue it resolved, but yep - it's magic sometimes.

I have not read your entire thread, so I don't know if the issue on your machine and Safe mode/Normal mode are related. Just wanted to let you know that doing waht you did was a real solution

Keep an eye on your system and if it exhibits odd behavior, post the details.

 

I think that was for changing from IDE mode to AHCI mode originally. Probably works with a lot of other things too, just wish they hadn't done away with F8 (by default) and made it so difficult to get into and out of safe mode in Windows 10.

 

That's why I originally switched from Legacy to UEFI, because with Legacy I didn't even have the option for safe mode and the online advice I read was that if I switch to UEFI I'd automatically get that option after two unsuccessful reboots.

I suppose I should mark this as solved, though I still don't understand how I got away with that switch when the online instructions for doing so seem far more complicated in terms of proper preparation and all that.