Windows 10: Will not boot except through recovery - every time

After having trouble with the Fall Creators Update not installing, I finally got it to install, but my computer would never shut down afterwards. I foolishly forced power off, and now am stuck with a bizarre boot problem, which I'll describe as well as I can below.

My system:
Alienware laptop with an M.2 SSD installed as boot device with Win 10. It also has a rotating HDD for data. The BIOS screen shows both drives installed. UEFI boot.

Symptoms:

• On every boot up, I get the blue screen error 0xC0000098 for missing BCD file.
• If I hit F12 for boot options while starting, I can see that the Windows Boot Loader option says it's on the HDD (which doesn't actually have an OS - hence the BCD error). There is no option for Windows Boot Loader on the disk with the SSD.
• If I plug in a USB recovery drive, I can boot to that and choose "Continue" and it loads Windows ok. (Odd symptom - it consistently shows my login screen twice; I enter my ID/pwd on each and then get in.)
• Once loaded, I can confirm that the SSD is accessible and appears to have all the files on it, including Windows and my applications.
• In Windows, Disk Management shows Disk 0 (the HDD) as healthy and Disk 1 (SSD) as healthy with boot partition identified. That's consistent with what it said when everything was working fine.
• Also from recovery, I can select "Use another OS", which shows me TWO selections that both say "Windows 10 on partition 9". Both of these work like choosing "Continue", in that I eventually get to a running state.
• Another possibly unrelated issue is that Chrome won't run anymore. I launch it, it shows up in the Task Manager, but never fully launches. Not sure if this is related or coincidence.

What doesn't work:
From Recovery / Advanced / Command Prompt:

• Running bootrec /scanos only finds windows.old on the SSD, but not the current windows installation
• Running bootrec /fixmbr returns "cannot find the file specified"
• Running bootrec /fixboot returns "cannot find the file specified"
• Running bootrec /rebuildbcd states that it can only find windows.old on the SSD and then errors out with "cannot find the file specified"

System Restore to the point just before the Windows Creator update failed, possibly because I can't get a clean boot.

At this point, I am at a loss of what to do next. It seems like all my files and the OS are still there, it just won't use them to boot. Perhaps the boot configuration is missing/corrupted and doesn't point to the SSD, where the OS actually is, but I can't figure out how to repair/recreate them. Or, key OS elements are actually missing, but that seems less likely since the computer eventually works once I boot it through Recovery.

Any help y'all can provide?

Thanks,
Scott

:)

 

Windows will not boot, needs to restore every time i start it up. Any potential solutions?

The following steps outline the steps to fix Windows failing to boot and you can boot to the advanced startup options.

http://www.yourwindowsguide.com/2017/05/fix-win...

Perform the steps one by one.

 

Windows will not boot, needs to restore every time i start it up. Any potential solutions?

A power surge shut my computer off while it was still on, it now fails to boot Windows on start up and takes me to "Windows Automatic Repair" every time. I have to go through a troubleshooting process that requires me to "Restore" in order to get windows
to finally boot and use my computer.

I'm running Windows 10 on a Dell XPS 8900.

Any suggestions or advice on how to fix this?

 

Please post a screen shot of disk management, expand all partitions.
Screenshot - Take in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums
Also, open admin command prompt and type:
diskpart
select disk 0
list par
select disk 1
list par

Post the result.

 

TopGunDCP,

Here is the info you requested. Obviously, Disk 0 is the rotating HDD; Disk 1 is the M.2 SSD.

 

From disk management, I can see that you did an upgrade from win8/8.1 to 10. In addition, you cloned from disk 0 to disk 1.
To fix the problem.

• Temporarily disconnect disk 0 (The hard Disk)
• Download Macrium Reflect Free X64. Install and create a USB rescue disk. OR just download the rescue disk from my Google Drive,
  MacRescue.iso - Google Drive
  format a USB with FAT32, set it to active and extract the content of the ISO to the USB.
• Boot up the Rescue disk, there will be 2 modes to boot from one without UEFI and the other is with UEFI prefix, select the UEFI-XXXX since your Windows installation used the UEFI-GPT style. then click on "Fix Windows Boot Problems" and follow the steps. This should re-build the BCD pointing to the Windows 10 from SSD.
• Reboot. Windows should boot using the BCD created in step 3.

Once it works, repeat the steps above but this time disconnect disk 1, and do the same for disk 0. This will create 2 independent boot managers, The boot default will be the Boot order you set in BIOS or use boot menu to boot from.

 

1) Please update the system specs in the "My Computer" section:
How To Fill Out Your System Specs
System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums:
System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums Site Use Tutorials
In the left corner below in your post you find 'My System Specs'.
After clicking it you can find a link a little below that says 'Update your System Spec', click on this link to get to the page where you can fill in your system specs.
System Info - See Your System Specs - Windows 7 Help Forums

Include PSU. cooler, case, peripherals and anything attached to the computer by wired or wireless (mouse, keyboard, headset, printer, xbox, etc.)

2) If possible please download and install Minitool partition wizard and post an image into the thread:
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

3) Open administrative command prompt:
Administrator: X:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
4) type: bcdedit | find "osdevice"
5) type: C:
6) dir
7) type: D:
8) dir
9) post an image into the thread

 

Topgundcp,
A couple of questions... first, how does the redundancy help? There are no OS files on the HDD, only on the flash. What is going to be redundant?

Also, it sounds like this will be non-destructive to the files on both disks; it that correct?

Finally, you were mostly correct in your assessment. I did use EaseUS partition manager and to-do backup to clone the OS install when I added the SSD. However, this computer never had Windows 8/8.1 on it. It was purchased new from the OEM with Win 10 already in place. Does that change anything about your recommendation?

Thanks so much for your help!

 

Zbook,
I'll pull that additional data this evening. Thanks!

 

It appears Disk 0 - is a 1TB HDD ( as you stated for data)
But it did have at one time an OS, due to the partitions present...

thus your PC actually sees 2 bootable drives, one has a windows OS, The other has just Data, where the OS use to be
thus BCD error

 

Since you want the HDD to contain only data, I would use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free to delete every partition on disk 0 except for the D: drive partition, then expand the D: drive partition in both directions to fill the drive.

Kyhi's bootable recovery tools has multiple partition programs that will let you do that, and it also has Macrium Reflect Free which is very good at repairing Windows booting problems.
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

 

@aikiscott
Result from diskpart of your post. It looks like you have 2 separate Windows installed due to cloning. Normally fresh install of Windows 10 has a 16MB MSR partition, not 128MB.
However, in Windows 8/8.1 the MSR reserved partition is 128MB. I guess since this is from an OEM system, the manufactutrer customized the disk layout and include their push button Recovery partition (11.27GB)

My mistake not recognizing that there's no Windows on the HDD, So the procedure @NavyLCDR gave you is correct.

 

Thanks to you all for the help. I'll try it this evening and report back results. Y'all are awesome.

 

OK, more help needed, I'm afraid.

• I downloaded the ISO for Kyhi's recovery disk, but my computer won't boot from it. Don't know how to proceed on that front.
• I also downloaded Macrium Reflect, but don't know where to go from here. I think I can figure out how to collapse the 1TB HDD to a single partition, but before I do that, I'd like to get the system booting from the 275GB SSD first. I can't find any menu options for repairing MBR. What am I missing?

Thanks to all of you!
Scott

 

To create a bootable USB flash drive of Kyhi's Recovery Tools, insert a flash drive that can be erased in the computer with Windows running. Open a command prompt or powershell window and run:
diskpart

In diskpart run:
lisk disk
select disk # <-replace # with the actual number for the USB flash drive
clean <- this will erase the disk selected above, make sure it is the USB flash drive!
create part pri
format fs=fat32 quick
active
assign
exit
exit

Then mount the ISO file for Kyhi's Recovery Tools. Windows 8 and 10 will mount the ISO from file explorer. Windows 7 requires a third part program such as WinCDEmu:
WinCDEmu - the easiest way to mount an ISO. And more...

Copy all the files and folders from the mounted ISO file to the USB flash drive. It will be bootable in both UEFI and legacy BIOS computers.

You won't find any menu options for repairing MBR because your drives are GPT partitioned, not MBR. The option to fix Windows boot problems in Macrium Reflect is only available if you boot from a flash drive that contains the rescue environment. Kyhi's recovery tools does contain the Macrium Reflect rescue environment. If you boot the computer to Kyhi's Recovery Drive, start Macrium Reflect on it, and on the restore menu will be the utility to fix Windows boot problems.