Windows 10: Windows Feature Updates Corrupting Harddrive in Machine With Recent Hardware Updates

About July or August of 2020 the thermal management system in my HP 8550W laptop failed and the graphics card and motherboard were destroyed from the overheating. At that point, I gutted the dual-core i5 motherboard out of it and transplanted a quad-core i7 motherboard, CPU and graphics card from another, better optioned, but beaten up HP 8560W that I bought for parts.

After the transplant, everything was working great and several updates installed fine until December when "Feature update to Windows 10, version 1909" came out. That update corrupted my hard drive such that repair tools on an install USB were unable to make the OS on the drive bootable again. But, luckily I use some 3rd party software to make backup images of my hard drive occasionally and was able to reimage the drive with an image from before the hardware changes...But that update would still corrupt the drive if allowed to install again.

The following linked thread was started when the issue first showed up: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/help-with-windows-update-corrupting-hard-drive-and/2d635eaa-8ab8-4c5e-9a6c-f862a0d25307



Since then I tried an experiment that has shed more light on what is happening. I wanted to determine if this might have been a virus pretty sure it isn't instead of a windows issue. Instead of installing the 7-month-old backup image I had been using, I instead installed the oldest Windows 10 image I have from back in 2016 when this first had windows 10 put on it. Then I spent 2 days letting it download updates. I wanted to see if it would corrupt the drive and how it would happen. What happened surprised me.


The 2016 backup image got to a 2-year-old feature update "Feature update to Windows 10, version 1809" the old i5 processor and motherboard had successfully run this update back then and it caused the i7 motherboard to corrupt the hard drive.

Thus logically, I can only conclude that windows feature updates are corrupting the hard drive because the OS is somehow not properly dealing with the hardware changes.


Ignoring the major problem of updates corrupting the hard drive, Windows runs fine on the new hardware and shows that it is activated.


Can anyone advise on any fixes or help me trouble shoot this deeper? This computer has expensive software on it that I've lost the install keys for so doing a fresh install is not an option...Even if I did it I'd have to go back to the old image with the update issue to have my software, and then I'd be right back where I am currently.


TLDR: I changed my Motherboard, CPU and Graphics to those from a better-optioned laptop of the same model and now all Windows Feature Updates corrupt the hard drive so it won't boot. I copy an old backup image of my hard drive over to fix it, windows tries to install the same update, corrupts the hard drive again and the loop repeats....Please Help me Fix This!

:)

 

Windows Updates failed to instal

I'm not sure how differant XP media center Edition is but you could clear the history \ cache if these folders are there.

Step 1 Register DLL files.

=================

By trying this step, we can check if the update engines are working properly.



1. Close all instances of Internet Explorer.

2. Click Start and Run, type "Regsvr32 atl.dll" (without quotes) in the Open box and click OK.



Note: There is a space between regsvr32 and atl.dll



3. Similarly, one by one, register the files listed below:



Regsvr32 msxml3.dll

Regsvr32 wuapi.dll

Regsvr32 wuaueng.dll

Regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll

Regsvr32 wups2.dll

Regsvr32 wucltui.dll

Regsvr32 wups.dll

Regsvr32 wuweb.dll

Regsvr32 qmgr.dll

Regsvr32 qmgrprxy.dll

Regsvr32 jscript.dll



Note: If you encounter errors while registering any of these files then skip that file and continue with the next one.



If the issue persists, let's move on to the steps below to verify Windows Update services and temporary folders.



Step 2 Verify the relevant Windows Update services.

=========================================

1. Click Start->Run, type "services.msc" (without quotation marks) in the open box and click OK.

2. Double click the service "Automatic Updates".

3. Click on the Log On tab, please ensure the option "Local System account" is selected and the option "Allow service to interact with desktop" is unchecked.

4. Check if this service has been enabled on the listed Hardware Profile. If not, please click the Enable button to enable it.

5. Click on the tab "General "; make sure the "Startup Type" is "Automatic" or "Manual". Then please click the button "Stop" under "Service Status" to stop the service.

6. Then please click the button "Start" under "Service Status" to start the service.

7. Please repeat the above steps with the other services:



Background Intelligent Transfer Service

Event Log

Remote Procedure Call (RPC)



Note: Event log service is enabled on all of the hardware profiles; this service does not have an option to enable or disable on certain hardware profile.



If it still does not help, let's proceed to step 3.



Step 3 Reload the Update temporary folders.

===================================

One possible cause is that the temporary folder for Windows Update is containing corrupted files. Let's erase all the files there to get the system clean.



1. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following command in the opened window.



Net stop WuAuServ



2. Click Start, Run, type: %windir% and press Enter.

3. In the opened folder, rename the folder SoftwareDistribution to Sdold.

4. Click Start, Run, type: cmd and press Enter. Please run the following command in the opened window.



Net start WuAuServ



Please test the Windows Update website and let me know the result. If the issue persists, to clarify the issue and provide more accurate troubleshooting steps, please assist me in collecting the following information.

 

Windows updates...

Oh. Your "Registry" must have gotten screwed up FLY3R. If for some reason you couldn't download your updates I suppose you could go to the update site, and run throught the steps 'till it fails activation. Then you could go up to "Tools > Manage Add ons > then disable "Windows Genuine Advatage Validation Tool." Of course you should only use this method if you are having problems updating your legitamate copy of Windows XP. Perhaps do to a corrupted piece of software? *Smile

 

Windows Update suddenly hangs?

Windows Update is suddenly hanging for some reason... I went and downloaded and installed the first bunch of updates, restarted when asked, and now when I go back to windows update I just get the window with a white box forever. Reboot and it still does it. This happens to be on my main machine, running windows 7.

I've also noticed when I reboot it says configuring windows update, step 3 of 3, 47%. Maybe it somehow skipped something and is screwed forever?