Windows 10: Windows 10 will only boot into recovery

Hi,


I have a dual boot laptop running Windows 10 alongside Ubuntu, and for no apparent reason, I am suddenly unable to boot into Windows 10, it just goes straight into recovery. I can still boot into Ubuntu and access the Windows 10 drives, and everything looks fine. The system was running fine and I was able to boot into Windows a few days ago where the only update was to Defender, there is no non MS AV installed. Windows system files are installed to an SSD which shows in Ubuntu as sdb, my documents and other files are on another (non SSD) drive which appears as sda. The laptop is setup to boot from UEFI with secure boot and the TPM both enabled.


I have booted into Windows recovery and tried Startup Recovery, however this always fails with no reason given. Similarly if I try to restore from System Restore, I am told there is no Windows installation specified. Attempting to uninstall the latest updates fails for the same reason. Have tried bootrec with scanos and it does find the existing Windows installation but rebuildbcd doesn't allow me to select it, fixmbr and fixboot options both fail. I have the 16GB recovery USB and have also created a Windows installation USB from the downloaded .iso, but neither of these offer the option to reset Windows, only to reinstall and delete my files and apps.


Looking at bcdedit /enum all, it seems that the system expects to boot from drive D; and all the entries point to that, however when I set the laptop up, the system was on drive C and the data drive was D, so am wondering if somehow the drives have been switched around?


Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed? I don't mind doing a reset on the Windows installation, as I don't have much on there, but don't want to do a full re-install?


Thanks in advance. Please no links to 3rd party software/sites, offers to remote in or requests for personal details.

:)

 

How does Windows boot to advanced recovery option e.g. command prompt?

- that gives me a 454 'Unexpected error' This tells me that the BCD is partially corrupted.

The commands: shutdown.exe /r /o /f /t 00
or: %SystemRoot%\System32\Cmd.exe /c reagentc /boottore&shutdown /r /f /t 00
should boot into Recovery if everything is configured correctly.
FYI, If Windows is configured correctly:

1. If Reagentc is disabled, you still can get into Recovery but with limited options.
2. If Reagentc is enabled, you'll get all options.
3. If you boot Windows using Recovery USB stick, You'll get into Recovery with couple of options missing.

Here's my suggestion if you want to try:
OPTION 1: Will save the trouble of re-install Windows.

1. Download the image of my first 3 partitions (450MB Recovery, 100 MB EFI partition, and 16MB unformatted primary)
   EFI_Boot-00-00.7z - Google Drive
2. Run Macrium and restore the image from step 1, overwriting your existing 1st three partitions, leaving C alone.
3. Delete the 490MB Recovery partition.
4. From Macrium, run fix boot problems.
5. Reboot. Open Admin command prompt then run Reagentc /info to make sure that it is enabled. If not, enable it.
   if failed to enable, reboot and try again.

OPTION 2: Assuming you've already had Windows backup with Macrium.

1. Wipe out the first 5 parttiions. (450MB, 100MB, 16MB, C Drive, 480MB)
2. Fresh install Windows 10
3. Restore C drive from backup image, run fix boot problems
4. repeat step 5 from OPTION 1 above.

 

Windows 10 USB boot

Hi there, am not a windows 10 expert. I have a pc in the bedroom on windows 10, I messed up the bootloader trying to fix the xp on that system.

System wont boot, trying to repair via win 10 usb installer.

Downloaded the media creation tool to install windows 10 installer on usb stick. Not compatible with a host of usb sticks I have. Tried the usb sticks that others use, but I think they use rufus; as the media creation tool by win 10 does not detect the usb stick.

So quick question, the win10 machine i am trying to repair the bootloader is a win7 upgraded to win10.
If i were to use the usb win10 installer to "repair installation" does the version of the iso downloaded via the media creation tool matter?

There is three options:
Windows 10
Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 N

Also is there a step by step instead of using rufus as I want to try an alternative method of creating a usb win 10 installer. Preferably with more compatibility.

System is a asus sabertooth 990 (r2?) with AMD phenom X 6.

Also is there any other software I can load onto the usb that can repair the bootloader easily?
That would be the ideal alternative. Thanks

 

windows 10 slow boot

I was having a slow boot issue on my Windows 7 install a little while back. It would take about 30 - 40 extra seconds to boot up for whatever reason.

I would try following these steps, while this didn't solve my issue, it did increase Read/Write to where it should be.

http://www.disk-partition.com/kb/tips-ssd-optimization-windows7-1.html

Looks to be similar to this: https://www.back2gaming.com/focus-story/ssd-optimization-for-windows-10-windows-8-and-8-1/


In the end, I had to reinstall my Windows 7 entirely to fix the booting issue. It was taking around 35 seconds to boot, and after the fresh install it takes about 7 seconds to boot.