Windows 10: Windows Boot Failure - Stuck in a loop

Let me preface this by hoping I'm in the correct place for this post, and to be sure my title is okay by this forums' standards. Please do redirect and correct me if either are at fault.

Hello! I've run into a bit of an issue when it comes to my Toshiba Satellite laptop.
I had purchased the laptop a little more than two years ago, and it has been running well within expectations. Started with Windows 8, upgraded to 8.1, and then recently, Windows 10. I've had absolutely no issue with 10 until just yesterday.

While browsing on Chrome, the entire screen had suddenly froze. No mouse movement, nothing moving on the webpage, nada. Closing the laptop (not powering it off) helped the issue once, but, couldn't seem to resolve it when it occurred later again the same day.

I powered off the machine, let it rest for about half an hour, and when I turned it back on, I was greeted with an unusually long blank black screen before Toshiba's screen finally popped up. Underneath their logo was "Preparing Automatic Repair" and a loading wheel. After about a minute, it moved on to the next long blank screen. This screen lasted upwards of 5 minutes before a new screen were to appear. This time "Diagnosing your PC" showed up, once again with the Toshiba screen, which also took some time to disappear.

Next was a blue screen:
"Automatic Repair

Your PC did not start correctly
Press "Restart" to restart your PC, which can sometimes fix the problem. You cantos press "Advanced options" to try other options to repair your PC."
with two buttons, "Restart" and "Advanced options".

Restarting did nothing, even after a second attempt.

Clicking "Advanced options" leads me to, you guessed it, more options.

"Continue
Exit and continue to Windows 10" failed and just brought me back to the "Automatic Repair" screen above.

"Use a device
Use a USB drive, network connection, or a Windows recovery DVD" for this one, I quickly made a recovery USB with a friend's computer. I believe what I used was the "Windows Creation Kit" or something along those lines. [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10]
I was unable to find an ISO file for Rufus.exe.
Using the USB just got me into another loop, even changing the BIOS didn't help.
No recovery disk, and I don't even know where to begin to use network connection.

"Troubleshoot
Reset your PC or see advanced options"
This has more options to explore. The only other remaining option before this is to turn off the PC.

Moving on to the more advanced options.

"System Restore" I have 3 restore points, and they all end in failure.

"System Image Recovery" no image to recover.

"Startup Repair" requires a restart to even change anything. Basically useless.

"Command Prompt" thoughts?

"UEFI firmware Settings" don't know what to do with this option. Have not explored.

"Startup Settings" see "Startup Repair"

the last option is to go back to previous build, but I would like to expend all other options before attempting that.

Not sure what else to write. I'll post any extra needed information upon request.

Edit: Readability. Also clarifying that I would like to keep my files safe. Factory reset is absolute last resort.

:)

 

Windows 10 cumulative update failure

after the update failed I am now stuck in a boot loop.

"Winodws could not complete the installation."

How do I get out of this loop?

[Original title: windows 10 cumulative update failure]

 

Stuck in a boot loop

Download your windows 10 ISO from the following

Download Windows 10

burn your dvd and can reinstall upgrade if available. else clean reinstall.

your machine should activate naturally as you've previously done the upgrade.

Else call Microsoft for activation, they will get you through it.

 

Update:

Going back to previous build ends in failure. Resetting the PC (not just turning it off/on, if I'm understood). Everything seems to end in failure; it's impossible to even do anything. Any advice? Command prompt maybe? UEFI?

 

If you can get back to Advanced options you can try Reset, refresh you will loose all third party applications you put on, only be able to save settings and personal files. Reset Windows 10


Another method is what is called an inplace repair upgrade, again can only be done within Windows 10, not boot from it, so need to be able to get into Windows 10 Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

Other option is clean install, also done in first link as a reset or download an ISO of Windows 10 and make a Disc or Bootable USB Drive.If can not boot into windows 10 can also boot from this disc to get to advanced options as i see you mention having a UEFI BIOS. New ISO now is the new Build of Windows 10 10586 , not the one you upgraded from 10240.

 

Sorry you said you had tried reset from Advanced options and it failed ?

 

I would install Macrium Reflect Free on an operating computer and make a rescue disk. Boot your laptop from the rescue disk and use that to make an image backup of your current hard drive. You will need a storage device to store it - it will be about 90% in size of the used amount on your hard drive - I would recommend an external hard drive. During the image backup, Macrium will verify the integrity of the existing file structure, and it will probably fail because it sounds like your hard drive is toast.

Anyway, if the image succeeds, you will be able to mount it later, using Macrium Reflect and pull data files/folders from it - but you won't be able to restore programs/apps from it, you will have to reinstall those from scratch.

Then you can do a clean install. It really sounds like the hard drive is toast, but memory failing could cause it too.

 

Correct. It's starting to seem that any way to fix the problem won't actually succeed.

 

I will definitely be trying this at the earliest notice. Would this keep photos safe, by chance? That's truly the only deal breaker.

 

If the image completes successfully, then yes, the photos will be safe. If Macrium detects errors in the file system that keep the image from being created, then I would take the hard drive out of the computer and take it to a repair shop that can recover files from a hard drive going bad.

 

Brilliant, thanks a ton to the help thus far.