Windows 10: Windows 10 will not boot winload.exe missing or corrupt

OS: Windows 10 Pro

upgraded from Windows 7 Pro using free Windows 10 upgrade

Disk: SanDisk 120GB SSD SDSSDA-120G

MOBO: H87H3-CM

BIOS: American Megatrends Version 2.15.1236 0904 09/04/2013



Replaced the MOBO same model# and now Windows 10 won't boot:






BIOS sees the full SSD drive

SSD in a sled on a different laptop shows the drive/partitions are healthy with no errors

EFI partition is active and bootable.

CHKDSK /r showed no errors or repairs/bad sectors

SFC /SCANNOW “did not find any integrity violations”



Attempts so far:



BIOS settings:

OS Select > "Win 7/Other OS" vs."Windows 8"

Launch CSM > Boot Options Filter > "Legacy Only" vs "UEFI only"

Launch CSM > Launch Storage OpROM policy > "Legacy Only" vs "UEFI only"

SATA Mode > "IDE Mode" vs "AHCI Mode" vs "RAID Mode"





Rebuild MBR using partition utilities on a sled in a different laptop:

AOMEI Partition Assistant Wizard Standard Edition 8.8

DiskGenius 5.2.1

Booth tool say the rebuild was completed. No change.





EasyBCD:

"Reset BCD Configuration" then manually added Windows 10 back to boot menu

"Re-create/repair boot files"





Boot from Windows 10 install media:

Automatic Repair>Advanced Options>Troubleshoot>Advanced Options>Command Prompt

bootrec /fixmbr Command completes with no error

bootrec /fixboot can't get past "Access Denied" error



I was still able to do these commands:

bcdedit /export c:\bcdbackup

attrib c:\boot\bcd -h -r -s

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old



Running either command:

bootrec /rebuildbcd

bootrec /scanos



come up with “0” windows installations



I was able to format the EFI partition with FAT32, then run:



bcdboot E:\windows /s C: /f all



This command at least got the BIOS to see the Windows 10 install and try to boot it.

And the next time I booted off the install media and selected "Startup Repair" the Windows 10 install was visible.

I rebooted and tried this, too:



bcdboot E:\windows /s C: /f UEFI



but no change.

Still stuck at the winload.exe error.



I also tried using runas at the prompt, to run these commands as admin but I get

“1060: The specified service does not exist as an installed service”

:)

 

Corrupt winload.efi file prevents booting

How to Fix winload.efi missing or corrupt error in Windows 10

 

Bootmgr is corrupt, system cannot boot.

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-winload-exe-2626051

 

Corrupt winload.efi file prevents booting

*Thumbs