Windows 10: Windows 10 won't boot system restore or reset?? Help please

So windows 10 crashed and now it won't boot. It gets past the manufacturer logo (acer) and then I get a black screen with a blinking curser. I used a usb with windows to boot it up but have tried to restore it, but it failed. Reset it , keeping my files, and that didn't work either. I need to get into the laptop as it has my every photo of my daughter who is now 18months and all our wedding photos. Please help my wife is not happy!!!!

:)

 

Windows 10 failed attempts to use "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" function

Repeated backup failures. Running Windows 10, and when the “Backup and Restore (Windows 7) program is run front the Control Panel, I get the messages:



“Check your backup. The last backup did not complete successfully”.



“Windows Backup failed to get an exclusive lock on the EFI system partition (ESP). This may happen if another application is using files on the ESP.”



“Please retry the operation.”



Each time I retry, I get the same result and messages.

Windows 10 came installed on my Dell Inspiron 15 (500 Series) laptop. I have successfully used the same Backup and Restore (Windows 7) program to “Create a system image”, as well as to “Create a system repair disc”.

Please provide me with some insight and suggested actions.

 

please help!

what did you restore it from? an image backup? what version?

you may need to fix the system reserved and boot partitions to make them look they way they were before.

I did an image of windows 10 after the upgrade, then restored it to see if it would work, and got inaccessible boot device also

turns out the imaging software I used was not Windows 10 aware and needed an update.

the way I fixed it was to do a fresh install of windows 10 from install media, just to get the partitions right again

then I restored ONLY the windows volume from my backup and not all the system reserved and recovery partitions. I left them as what the clean install put on.

not sure if this is the same as your situation.

you can also use a partition manager like GPARTED to try to get the partitions marked correctly as to which one is active, which is boot, etc.

if you could say what versions you are talking about it would help. but my guess is that your system partitions (the little 100mb and 450mb ones) are marked as the wrong type.

 

Hi Alanjog and welcome to the forum *Smile

Assuming your hard disk has neither irretrievably failed or suffered major data corruption then:

You can retrieve your all those deeply sentimental photos via a Linux Live disk. After that is done you can just do a clean install of Win10.

Hopefully that will keep you off the sofa and out of the dog house!

Edit: For future reference, please take note of the guidance within my signature. Thanks

 

Thanks so much for the reply. I have never heard of Linux Live disk so thats very helpful. I went at it over the weekend and not sure how but it managed to do a system retore on the 5th try!! Wierd, anyway, i got in and now am backing up all my files before i proceed with a complete clean windows 10 install. Thanks again. Much appreciated.