Windows 10: W10 issues - upgrade or automatic repair loop?

It recognized two HDD's. I thought you had one.

Do you have access to another computer and something to mount your current HDD into, either the case or an external enclosure?

 

Sadly no.

I actually resolved today to just do a clean install and be done with it. I got an USB and used Rufus to get it to fuction as the bootable media. Thing is, again it's recognized as either flash disk or UEFI: flash disk. The normal one sends me straight into W10 repair (ergo, it does nothing) and the UEFI one sends me to the purple screen (W10 install) but nothing actually pops up.

I am completely stumped

 

Ouch.

Please follow this tutorial on doing a clean install. Please note BIOS settings, listed as warnings with pink background, they may even be holding up your current install. I imagine your MB boots UEFI so Rufus has to be FAT32.

It is just so much simplier to use the USB key that Microsoft generates when created on Windows 10 machine. (4GB). Buy a buddy a beer and create a key at their house. Depending on download speed, maybe two beers.

Can you boot to command prompt with current system?


Ken

 

Do you mean the tutorial that you posted on the first page? It is what I used to setup the USB the first time around. I used Rufus because for some reason the Windows media tool would not recognize my USB, as such I downloaded the ISO and used Rufus to get it on the USB.

I will give it another shot.

I am not sure if I am booting into command prompt. But I can get into automatic repair and one of the advanced options there is command prompt. So technically I guess, yes?

Thanks a lot so far!

 

The windows Media tool will not create USB key unless you are on a Win 10 machine, at least that has been my experience. It use to work on any machine but that changed at the end of the advertised give away, my experience. Hope someone reading challenges me because I would like to be able to use on any machine again.

If you can get to command prompt you can get your data. If you don't have enclosure you could buy one of those packaged drives, enclosure and disk, for a reasonable amount. 1TB cost around $90 CDN. Depending on amount of data maybe it would fit on large USB key.

 

I don't get it anymore.

I have tried a Windows 10 USB with various configurations (GPT, MBR whatever. All the options) and none of them seem to get past the purple screen after selecting the USB for booting. (Fast and Secure Boot are both disabled).

I let it boot from my harddrive (the WD one that used to have my OS) and I get to the command prompt option. I enter 'diskpart' and then 'list disk' and then it comes up with 'there are no fixed disks to show'.

What the living F.. has this Windows 10 upgrade done to my PC?

 

Hi Gravemind

Does your drive show in BIOS as a boot option?

Was reading your manual, page 29. Just below fast boot you will see Windows 8/10 Features. Its default is other OS. What is yours set to? I think it should be set to Windows 8/10 but would be interested in what yours says.

When you set the option above the CSM option should appear. I would set to off to support UEFI boot process only

Now your USB has to be FAT32. Once you boot from USB key and assuming you get by just a purple screen press shift +F10
then enter

diskpart
List disk
select disk 0
clean
exit
exit

I'm assuming your HDD is GPT.

Ken

 

Hi Caledon,

Once again, thanks a lot for your continued efforts!

When I enter the boot setup I can in fact see all my drives + the USB (uefi and normal)
It was actually set to 'other OS' and then the CSM option appeared and I set it to disabled (was enabled by default).

Funnily enough, when I saved these settings and I went back into boot setup my harddrives were not there but the USB was. And while I was concerned at first, I did manage to get past the purple screen now!

I will keep you posted *Smile

Edit: it seems to go smoothly and I even got as far as the screen with the various partitions. However, I got a notice that it couldn't install Windows on partition 2 of station 0 because it had an MBR partition label (and then something about EFI systems and GPT only).

Also, it seems that my PC now exclusively boots from the USB and it no longer shows the drives in the boot setup. Interesting?

Alright. I tried one of my USB sticks that has the same Windows 10 ISO but with the MBR setup rather than the GPT one, but it went straight into bios and it showed no bootable devices.

I enabled CSM again and the drives showed up again. I managed to get into the installation process once more (using the USB with the MBR partition setup). I didn't get the error regarding partition 2 for drive 0. HOWEVER (this seems to be an ongoing trend). I got an error message stating something along the lines 'Windows could not initialize the distribution engine'.

I guess cleaning the disk and (perhaps also formatting it to GPT) is the only option at this point?

Yet another update!
I actually went to PC repair from the MBR USB and it had the option 'Go to W10' and it started checking and repairing the C: drive (never seen that happen this last week).

I am actually back in right now! What's the best advice right now? Aside from gathering all my data. Should I still do a fresh install or?

 

Excellent.

Myself, I would save off my data and I would clean install. That said you had a ton of issues and I wouldn't want to create more grief. Interesting that if you ran those commands your data was preserved. It should have been deleted.

You may wish to create an Image with Macrium Reflect and its boot disk.

To get a second set of keys (so to speak) to your system I would also create a Recovery Drive and I would keep it up to date with each major release. Type recovery drive in cortana and the app will pop to top. You likely need an 8GB key. If you start the process and go in a few steps Windows will tell you exactly what size it needs. Some 4GB, some 16GB, most 8GB.

I think it is all about the bios settings and you obvious are getting good at that. So that your disk is made GPT notice the convert command added. In the example below disk 0 is the target disk, your hdd. (Still not sure how your data survived.)

diskpart
List disk
select disk 0
clean
convert gpt
exit
exit


Ken

 

Thanks Caledon! I got most of the data off manually and I will look into the recovery drive option as well.

My intention was to use the commands, but when I clicked 'Repair Windows' and got to the blue screen with the various options it said 'Go to Windows 10' at the top. From there on out it rebooted, it started checking and repairing C: and eventually I even got back in.

As you said, I will double check this week whether or not I got everything off and then I'll probably clean the disk entirely, reformat to GPT and go with a fresh install.

Once again thank you so much for all your aid over the last week! Those bios features you mentioned really were the saving grace in the end *Smile

 

You are welcome. Glad it is operational again. Try Macrium Reflect even if you image to partition on your HDD. Build boot disk. Its free and it will save you eventually.

The Creators release is likely a couple of months away so we potentially get another opportunity to be challenged. LOL


Ken