Windows 10: Repair Corrupt Install From Boot Install DVD?

no, I haven't. I'll look for it and try it. bit pressed for time recently....

 

Use Activation Troubleshooter in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

 

I just had a look. I didn't get the activation troubleshooter. Didn't show. But there's an 'error details' thing and when I clicked on it I was told this key 'has been blocked'.

hmmmm...

 

As this machine has apparently previously run an activated Windows 10, then changing the key to the appropriate generic key should activate it from the digital licence on the activation servers. By 'appropriate key' I mean the one for Home or Pro, whichever one was on the PC originally.

A common reason for not activating automatically is installing Pro when it had Home before, or vice versa. Such errors can be corrected by changing to the appropriate generic key.

Or just do another clean install, this time for the right version.

 

well I'm sure it is the right version. win10 pro. i mean there's no minor variations within that is there? it's either pro or not? i'm sure it was pro and is pro.

i've still got that old drive of course, waiting for me to try again to rescue it. perhaps i can put it in this machine and look at it as a 'secondary' or data drive and read off which version it was/is?

or booting as it does to that endless round of 'trouble shooting' is that far enough for me to get some indication from there?

In fact shouldn't there be some way to fix a windows install like that? I mean put the drive into another machine and use that machine's OS to scan/search/fix the OS on the target? Obvious way to go when you get an OS so corrupted that it won't boot any more. But come to think of it I've never seen any mention of that route.

p.s. I might have missed something there: 'appropriate generic key' ? I simply input the original key that had been in use. That's what you mean?

 

There is a generic key for each edition of windows. If you got windows 10 by the free upgrade, this is the key you would have ended up with. The one for Pro is:
VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T
(according to this tutorial)

Enter the generic key and windows will check on the activation servers to see if your PC's hardware has a digital licence for that edition. If it does it will activate.

 

Actually, there is W10Pro, W10ProN, W10 Single Language - all different animals

Did the system come originally with W8/8.1? If so, the key will be stored in the BIOS and you can get it by running ShowKeyPlus - it will tell you what version you had.
ShowKeyPlus - - Windows 10 Forums

Not that I'm aware of, apart from running CHKDSK. You'd need to be "in" the problem OS, in order to do an in-place repair install.

What Bree gave you was the generic key for W10Pro. But, you shouldn't need a key at all if the system previously had W10 installed and activated. That's why the question comes up, did you install the correct version?

 

I realize this is for W7, but have a look at it. You can get to command prompt in the W10 repair environment, and replacing these files may do the trick for you:
Startup Repair Infinite Loop Recovery - Windows 7 Help Forums
.

 

There are also a lot of suggestions here, but whatever you do, DO NOT download Reimage.
Fix: Windows 10 Automatic Repair Couldn’t Repair Your PC

 

I just ran HD Tune on the bad drive and it found one bad sector. It's a good prog by looks of it. But it doesn't say whether or not it fixes bad sectors? I suppose it does, flags them as bad and removes them from use?

Anyway it didn't help.

I tried various of those Function options - start in safe with networking, disable malware thing, enable debugging, logging - but nothing helped, it only annoyed me by jumping off immediately on a keypress so's for five options i had five restarts....

that's why showkeyplus is a no-go for me at this time.

yep. and how'm i going to know? where do i look to get the definitive answer for each drive - given that one drive can't be run as a system drive?

On this good drive with no key (now) it says in settings:

Edition: Win10Pro. No build data at all.
Product ID: 00330-80000-00000-AA240

I can't run that on the other.

It is beginning to look to me like there's something wrong with my key along the lines of the 'too many copies' thing or something like that. Why on earth wouldn't Windows just come out and tell you if that's the case? You don't know whether to keep trying or to give up...


I think we need to know how to inspect a win10 system disk when it is not being used as a system disk and to detect all problems and extract all version and key info and so on.

lay the patient on the table and operate.

there's something wrong with the kernel of this OS that's stopping it trucking on....

Can't even bring it up in safe mode with debugging... my googling seems to indicate you have to have the system coming up before you can interrupt it and send it back to come up in safe mode.... which i guess is what was happening with all my attempts previously that culminate in the endless cycling round....

we need a safe mode and debugger that steps along to where all that stuff starts and identifies why it chose to take that path...

 

You didn't say if the system originally came with Win 8/8.1 on it? Because if it did, the key would be stored in the BIOS, which means you could boot to Kyhi's rescue media, run ShowKeyPlus and get the edition.

 

oh, i didn't realise showkeyplus was on kyhi's media. i don't understand win8/8.1. Is that another way of saying 'win10' ? It came with win10 on it.

i'm swapping system disks in and out of the same machine here all the time. and grabbing a few minutes from my job when i can..

i'll swap it in again and run the kyhi.

 

Oh yes, on an OEM system with the OS pre-installed, the W10 key would also be stored in the BIOS. Therefore, you could run ShowKeyPlus and grab the edition info. Here's all in his custom rescue media:






p.s. - I think it doesn't matter what disk you have in there, (it could even be a Linux system disk), because when you boot from Kyhi's rescue media, you run ShowKeyPlus and it looks to the BIOS, not your system disk.

 

Well I ran it and I get 'OEM key not present in firmware' which I guess is the BIOS.

And no mention of any editions.

Just product Win10 Pro.

And a product ID. 00330-80000-00000-AA240 in this case which is the new drive.

I only have one drive on the machine right now. For simplicity I took out two internal drives and two external.

 

Not present in firmware? Odd. You can run it again and select Check Key and plug in your key and it will give you the edition that key is for. Just to be sure that's not the problem...