Windows 10: Windows & USB install neither booting (trying SFC & DISM)

Please bare with me to while I explain my unique situation. I bought my new MSI GL73 9SC-028 in May 2020, never had problems with it before. I even upgraded the memory with RAM I bought at same time (from 8 GB to 16 GB), never problems. Then I bought 64 GB RAM of the right kind, and after installing it, my laptop would only turn on for literally 1 second, only the keyboard backlight would illuminate, fans would not activate, then just goes off. I've tried everything from power-cycling to CMOS flushing to removing flex cables from ports in case a short is happening, nothing has worked, and let me to assume that the motherboard is now bad. I can't replace it until next stimulus comes, hopefully within a few weeks.

So but anyhow, I ended up buying a USB NVMe SSD USB enclosure for the MSI Windows drive so it would hopefully boot on my 2013 HP laptop that otherwise has no bootable drive. After a little BIOS tinkering, I got the NVMe to boot the HP into Windows, although it's USB so not quite as fast as it could be (and for some reason, only the slower USB port is recognizing the USB NVMe. So it did load Windows and everything was fine, but the few times I had to reboot to fix something, or to flush Windows cuz File Explorer wouldn't load, it had problems booting back up. Currently, the NVMe starts booting, the swirling thing appears, and goes to a blank screen or the swirl keeps going indefinitely, after like 30 seconds the drive just "idle reads" at blank screen and nothing ever happens. It doesn't actively read it fast like it initially does, fan dies down so I assume no activity. Even overnight it does nothing. However, it does allow me to access the Windows RE after 3 failed attempts though, but none of the options there are working for me, Startup Repair, Refresh PC (gets to like 50% complete and says undoing changes, then says not able to Refresh, not sure why.

I read so many things online, so I tried running SFC /scannow and other options, which says it found errors but couldn't fix them all. So I also tried DISM with the options but it's more finicky cuz it's not an "online image", and I tried the option /WinDir and /Image but I'm guessing it doesn't work cuz it's not technically an image (file?) but the Windows environment itself. I'm having trouble fully understanding DISM cuz it sounds like you can't service an offline non-image Windows installation. Is it true that you have to either be booted into the Windows environment that you want serviced or have a WIM image file (mounted or unmounted, both considered offline I'm assuming). You can't service an actual Windows installation with DISM unless it's online?? I'll start there on my DISM questioning, before typing the different options for it that I've tried using.

Then in the midst of that, I found a USB Windows 10 install flash-drive that I made last year when I had a problem, forgot I had it. It booted the HP to Windows install, but I made the mistake of choosing automatic repair (to hopefully repair the USB NVMe), then it restarted and the USB stick would no longer boot to installation. Not sure why that happened. I can boot into NVMe Windows RE though, and I can start setup from attached USB install, but then it says it doesn't support installing to external USB (NVMe). I've heard you have to be booted into the USB installer to work.

So within the NVMe Windows RE Command Prompt, I've tried bootrec /FixMbr (which says successfull), but /FixBoot says access denied, and the literature I've read on it didn't fix that for me, again I think I have to be on USB install boot on order to work. Also did /RebuildBCD but doesn't seem to work.

So then I tried bcdboot on the NVMe and seems to have copied files, but didn't make it work though. Then I tried bcdboot on the USB install stick, which also seemed to copy files to, but might've made it worse, I dunno. Question, Is using bcdboot only to repair an already-installed Windows environment, or would it also work to repair a USB Windows installation media that no longer boots? If not, how can I fix USB installation media without networking, only Command Prompt where I can access the media but just not boot with it ?

I could get into what I've tried with DISM, but I wanna start with those 2 questions first:

#1. Can you only use DISM to service an online Windows installation and not an offline one, and you can only service offline if it's in the form of an image file ?

#2. Is using bcdboot only to repair an already-installed Windows environment, or would it also work to repair a USB Windows installation media that no longer boots ?

If this posting is in wrong thread, feel free to move it to it's proper place. It was either this one is general support. Thanks in advance guys. I read this whole threading BTW:

How to properly use SFC and DISM to fix no boot?

:)

 

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

 

Installing windows off of a USB stick

Step By Step from vista:
From admin cmd prompt

1. diskpart
1a. list disk
2. select disk 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ (d being your vista cd and e being your usb stick)

And that's it, boot off your usb disk

 

Can't get SFC and DISM to work anymore on Win10

Ok, can someone help me out because this crap is starting to piss me off. There was once a time when you could simply run SFC and DISM to check Windows files integrity and if there were any problems found with the local files, Windows repaired it automatically. The reason why I want to run this is because I'm getting stupendously huge amount of errors and warnings in Event Viewer, but I don't want to run refresh because it'll mess up tons of apps.

Commands I used:
sfc /scannow
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Fast forward few years and we now have glorious Windows 10. Trying to run the same tools, they find errors but stubbornly refuse to fix ANYTHING. What's the god damn point of it then?

Sfc finds issues but can't repair them and DISM constantly bitches how it can't find the source. All this used to work directly in Windows 7, but in Win 10, nothing. This was one of the best features to get OS back in good state and they go and ruin it. Because Microsoft!

I've checked this thread:
https://social.technet.microsoft.co...sfc-failed-to-repair?forum=win10itprohardware

Nothing worked. And they keep mentioning install.wim where my Windows image downloaded from Microsoft itself! only carries install.esd which I can't seem to use with anything.

I've also tried this tool:
CodePlex Archive

Which again wants .wim file and refuses to work with esd.