How to fix windows 10 not booting

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mnewxcv

[H]F Junkie
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Mar 4, 2007
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Alright guys, I am at a stand still right now. A family member's computer is failing to completely boot. I suspect it has something to do with a shut down during update scenario but I could be wrong.

The problem is the computer will get to the user selection screen, you can log in, but then it is just a black screen or windows background, sometimes with task bar (after waiting a long time), and windows is completely unresponsive minus the cursor. No icons appear, task manager wont open, etc.

Tried automatic startup repair, advanced startup repair, says it cannot fix. System restore would not restore to either of the 2 restore points. Within command prompt from USB boot drive, system file scan finds no problems. Safe mode boots BUT is unresponsive minus cursor, which if you try to click the start menu, a pop up says process unresponsive, end or cancel, which ending appears to restart explorer.exe (taskbar goes away for a second then comes back).


Any thoughts on how to fix this other than a complete reinstall?
 
Win10 by any chance?
Just had my box get the black screen bug.

You and I are looking at worse case, where you go pull 1809 from MS and freeze updates or in my case I pull the nvme drive out and throw my ubuntu install back in it.

I needed to stop wasting so much time playing videogames anyway.
 
somebrains said:
Win10 by any chance?
Just had my box get the black screen bug.

You and I are looking at worse case, where you go pull 1809 from MS and freeze updates or in my case I pull the nvme drive out and throw my ubuntu install back in it.

I needed to stop wasting so much time playing videogames anyway.
Click to expand...

You do understand this thread is 5 and a half months old, right? :D
 
It's a failed Windows 10 update, not at all uncommon and in nine out of ten cases can be fixed, follow the steps below:

- Create a bootable ISO with the Media Creation Tool.
- Boot the PC, log into Windows and allow the PC to boot to the point where you have a black desktop with task bar but no icons. (you have to be able to boot into the existing OS, this cannot be done booted from the install media).
- At this point, press [ctrl] & [Alt] & [Del] and select Task Manager.
- Click 'File > Run New Task'.
- Enter CMD and run as Administrator.
- Insert Windows 10 ISO USB.
- Enter 'diskpart' without the quotes, wait...
- At the prompt, enter 'list volume' without the quotes.
- Find the volume letter of your install media, once you know the volume letter type 'exit' without quotes and hit enter.
- At the CMD prompt, browse to your Windows 10 ISO USB (ie: f: )
- enter 'setup.exe' without the quotes and the update should start again, let it run all the way through, this could take hours. Do not interrupt the process.
- Once this is done, remove the USB ISO, reboot and all should be good.

Hope this helps.
 
Mazzspeed said:
It's a failed Windows 10 update, not at all uncommon and in nine out of ten cases can be fixed, follow the steps below:

- Create a bootable ISO with the Media Creation Tool.
- Boot the PC, log into Windows and allow the PC to boot to the point where you have a black desktop with task bar but no icons. (you have to be able to boot into the existing OS, this cannot be done booted from the install media).
- At this point, press [ctrl] & [Alt] & [Del] and select Task Manager.
- Click 'File > Run New Task'.
- Enter CMD and run as Administrator.
- Insert Windows 10 ISO USB.
- Enter 'diskpart' without the quotes, wait...
- At the prompt, enter 'list volume' without the quotes.
- Find the volume letter of your install media, once you know the volume letter type 'exit' without quotes and hit enter.
- At the CMD prompt, browse to your Windows 10 ISO USB (ie: f: )
- enter 'setup.exe' without the quotes and the update should start again, let it run all the way through, this could take hours. Do not interrupt the process.
- Once this is done, remove the USB ISO, reboot and all should be good.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Atleat someone is intrested to give a ressolution. just tried on my citrix VDI
 
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Mazzspeed said:
It's a failed Windows 10 update, not at all uncommon and in nine out of ten cases can be fixed, follow the steps below:

- Create a bootable ISO with the Media Creation Tool.
- Boot the PC, log into Windows and allow the PC to boot to the point where you have a black desktop with task bar but no icons. (you have to be able to boot into the existing OS, this cannot be done booted from the install media).
- At this point, press [ctrl] & [Alt] & [Del] and select Task Manager.
- Click 'File > Run New Task'.
- Enter CMD and run as Administrator.
- Insert Windows 10 ISO USB.
- Enter 'diskpart' without the quotes, wait...
- At the prompt, enter 'list volume' without the quotes.
- Find the volume letter of your install media, once you know the volume letter type 'exit' without quotes and hit enter.
- At the CMD prompt, browse to your Windows 10 ISO USB (ie: f: )
- enter 'setup.exe' without the quotes and the update should start again, let it run all the way through, this could take hours. Do not interrupt the process.
- Once this is done, remove the USB ISO, reboot and all should be good.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Will try this, though as mentioned in the first post, I don't think I was able to run task manager at all. Will give it another shot though!
 
mnewxcv said:
Will try this, though as mentioned in the first post, I don't think I was able to run task manager at all. Will give it another shot though!
Click to expand...

I've yet to see an instance where task manager won't run. Just let the PC sit until the desktop (if you can call it a desktop) has fully loaded and the HDD has stopped thrashing then hit [ctrl] & [alt] & [del].
 
Mazzspeed said:
I've yet to see an instance where task manager won't run. Just let the PC sit until the desktop (if you can call it a desktop) has fully loaded and the HDD has stopped thrashing then hit [ctrl] & [alt] & [del].
Click to expand...
I have seen a couple of cases where a virus or malware disabled the task manager in order to deny the user the chance to find or kill it's processes.
 
B00nie said:
I have seen a couple of cases where a virus or malware disabled the task manager in order to deny the user the chance to find or kill it's processes.
Click to expand...

In the case of Viruses or Malware, yes, I've seen this and more - They usually also block Windows updates (about the only good part about Viruses and Malware!)

But this example is literally text book failed Windows 10 update, once what's left of the desktop has finally booted (and that can take a while), Task Manager should work. If it doesn't, back up the user profile if it still exists and reinstall.
 
Mazzspeed said:
In the case of Viruses or Malware, yes, I've seen this and more - They usually also block Windows updates (about the only good part about Viruses and Malware!)

But this example is literally text book failed Windows 10 update, once what's left of the desktop has finally booted (and that can take a while), Task Manager should work. If it doesn't, back up the user profile if it still exists and reinstall.
Click to expand...
Heh, my virtual Windows 10 was hit by the black screen of death bug after a restart and forced 'configuration'. Gotta love it. Thank god I never keep anything important on a Windows machine.
 
B00nie said:
Heh, my virtual Windows 10 was hit by the black screen of death bug after a restart and forced 'configuration'. Gotta love it. Thank god I never keep anything important on a Windows machine.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it is a good thing Linux never has any display and boot issues. :rolleyes:
 
ManofGod said:
Yeah, it is a good thing Linux never has any display and boot issues. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Yes, it never really has unless the user messes it up - quite unlike Microsoft forcing the update and breaking it.

The only times I have had display/boot issues is when I've tried to install display drivers the wrong way and ended up breaking something.

Besides I use OSX for daily desktop. About 100x more stable than Windows.
 
Posting for my own future reference, if nothing else.

So I just had an issue where Windows 10 Pro hibernated, and when I woke it up, black screen due to missing/corrupt boot configuration data (BCD) info. Even getting into BIOS required many restarts and me changing the USB port where the keyboard was plugged in. For completeness, this is a 3600X on C7H, 32gb DDR4 3200, stock/default/auto settings in BIOS (Except RAM is set to 3200, all timings auto). There is a single ADATA XPG SX8200 512gb NVME SSD installed in NVME slot 1, setup as one large partition with Win 10 Pro installed on it, no other drives.

Luckily, I had the installation media (USB drive).

After managing to get into BIOS to change the boot order, loading up the installation media gave access to the repair menu. Startup repair failed completely every time. Several sites suggested the following series of commands in a cmd window, which I tried twice:

BOOTREC /FIXMBR (this always 'completed successfully')
BOOTREC /FIXBOOT (always threw 'access denied')
BOOTREC /RebuildBcd (always reported that it scanned for Windows installations and found 0. 'completed succesfully')

Obviously the above didn't fix anything. Here's what worked, taken from this site:

article said:
If BOOTREC /RebuildBcd does not work, then Microsoft recommends you back up your BCD (Boot Configuration Data) store, then run the BOOTREC /RebuildBcd command again. Here is how you do it.

Type each command then hit <Enter>:

  • bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
  • c:
  • cd boot
  • attrib bcd -s -h -r
  • ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
  • bootrec /RebuildBcd
Click to expand...
Since my only drive was C:, I was able to use the exact commands as above. The final rebuild bcd command detected 1 Windows installation and apparently fixed the problem. Changed Boot order in BIOS and Windows loaded up (took a few seconds longer, similar to loading for the first time) and everything was working again as before.

My first two actions upon getting back into Windows was to turn off Hibernation (Cmd as administrator, 'powercfg.exe /h off') and create a new restore point. (I will note that system restore appeared to be working during my troubleshooting process - the menu worked and I was presented with the option of restoring to a point that I recognized. I did not do that, though, as it would've lost data.)

Am I the only one around here who has had hibernation failures with Win 7, 8, and now 10? Has this shit ever worked?
 
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Nicepants42 said:
So I just had an issue where Windows 10 Pro hibernated, and when I woke it up, black screen due to missing/corrupt boot configuration data (BCD) info. Even getting into BIOS required many restarts and me changing the USB port where the keyboard was plugged in. For completeness, this is a 3600X on C7H, 32gb DDR4 3200, stock/default/auto settings in BIOS (Except RAM is set to 3200, all timings auto). There is a single ADATA XPG SX8200 512gb NVME SSD installed in NVME slot 1, setup as one large partition with Win 10 Pro installed on it, no other drives.

Luckily, I had the installation media (USB drive).

After managing to get into BIOS to change the boot order, loading up the installation media gave access to the repair menu. Startup repair failed completely every time. Several sites suggested the following series of commands in a cmd window, which I tried twice:

BOOTREC /FIXMBR (this always 'completed successfully')
BOOTREC /FIXBOOT (always threw 'access denied')
BOOTREC /RebuildBcd (always reported that it scanned for Windows installations and found 0. 'completed succesfully')

Obviously the above didn't fix anything. Here's what worked, taken from this site:


Since my only drive was C:, I was able to use the exact commands as above. The final rebuild bcd command detected 1 Windows installation and apparently fixed the problem. Changed Boot order in BIOS and Windows loaded up (took a few seconds longer, similar to loading for the first time) and everything was working again as before.

My first two actions upon getting back into Windows was to turn off Hibernation (Cmd as administrator, 'powercfg.exe /h off') and create a new restore point.

Am I the only one around here who has had hibernation failures with Win 7, 8, and now 10? Has this shit ever worked?
Click to expand...
I haven't used hibernate since windows 7. Standby seems low power enough and doesn't need to boot back up.
 
Nicepants42 said:
Posting for my own future reference, if nothing else.

So I just had an issue where Windows 10 Pro hibernated, and when I woke it up, black screen due to missing/corrupt boot configuration data (BCD) info. Even getting into BIOS required many restarts and me changing the USB port where the keyboard was plugged in. For completeness, this is a 3600X on C7H, 32gb DDR4 3200, stock/default/auto settings in BIOS (Except RAM is set to 3200, all timings auto). There is a single ADATA XPG SX8200 512gb NVME SSD installed in NVME slot 1, setup as one large partition with Win 10 Pro installed on it, no other drives.

Luckily, I had the installation media (USB drive).

After managing to get into BIOS to change the boot order, loading up the installation media gave access to the repair menu. Startup repair failed completely every time. Several sites suggested the following series of commands in a cmd window, which I tried twice:

BOOTREC /FIXMBR (this always 'completed successfully')
BOOTREC /FIXBOOT (always threw 'access denied')
BOOTREC /RebuildBcd (always reported that it scanned for Windows installations and found 0. 'completed succesfully')

Obviously the above didn't fix anything. Here's what worked, taken from this site:


Since my only drive was C:, I was able to use the exact commands as above. The final rebuild bcd command detected 1 Windows installation and apparently fixed the problem. Changed Boot order in BIOS and Windows loaded up (took a few seconds longer, similar to loading for the first time) and everything was working again as before.

My first two actions upon getting back into Windows was to turn off Hibernation (Cmd as administrator, 'powercfg.exe /h off') and create a new restore point. (I will note that system restore appeared to be working during my troubleshooting process - the menu worked and I was presented with the option of restoring to a point that I recognized. I did not do that, though, as it would've lost data.)

Am I the only one around here who has had hibernation failures with Win 7, 8, and now 10? Has this shit ever worked?
Click to expand...

The Fixmbr command will never work on your Windows 10 installation, since it is a GPT partitioned drive. However, there is a way to fix the boot record for GPT partitioned drives, I just do not recall off the top of my head on how to do it.
 
I never used hibernation prior to Windows 10 so I can't comment on how it used to work. However, I had a boot failure with 10 and tried to use a Linux live ISO to get back into the drive. However, the hibernation feature causes the drive to not show its contents correctly so once I managed to get back in I turned the feature off. So far I have no reason to regret doing so.
 
B00nie said:
Heh, my virtual Windows 10 was hit by the black screen of death bug after a restart and forced 'configuration'. Gotta love it. Thank god I never keep anything important on a Windows machine.
Click to expand...

Funny how you mention black screens when its a very common issue for new installs to have to deal with a black screen.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bla.....69i57j0l5.2348j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

When I install Ubuntu, Solus, or Manjaro I have to screw around in grub to get a terminal window to pop up so I can manually edit nosetmode into a grub file in ETC. Otherwise I'm greeted with a black screen. This also happens when updating Ubuntu from 17.x to 18 or 19.x. So you can cut this bullshit about how its all "user mistakes". I am happy to turn that around and remind you that the only action I took was installing Linux, which by your argument would mean that just installing Linux was the "user mistake".
 
AltTabbins said:
Funny how you mention black screens when its a very common issue for new installs to have to deal with a black screen.

https://www.google.com/search?q=bla.....69i57j0l5.2348j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

When I install Ubuntu, Solus, or Manjaro I have to screw around in grub to get a terminal window to pop up so I can manually edit nosetmode into a grub file in ETC. Otherwise I'm greeted with a black screen. This also happens when updating Ubuntu from 17.x to 18 or 19.x. So you can cut this bullshit about how its all "user mistakes". I am happy to turn that around and remind you that the only action I took was installing Linux, which by your argument would mean that just installing Linux was the "user mistake".
Click to expand...
First of all, it's not common at all. The link you posted had a couple random issues from years back and they were solved. At least you can fix it easily and none of this is forced by linux maintainers to your computer by force like Microsoft does. You still have control over your computer. Also the 17.x and 19.x are not stable production versions so USER ERROR is at play!
 
B00nie said:
First of all, it's not common at all. The link you posted had a couple random issues from years back and they were solved. At least you can fix it easily and none of this is forced by linux maintainers to your computer by force like Microsoft does. You still have control over your computer. Also the 17.x and 19.x are not stable production versions so USER ERROR is at play!
Click to expand...

This is a standing issue from 16 up to 19. Including the current LTS. Its also extremely common, enough so where there’s dozens of YouTube videos about it and hundreds of topics on forums asking how to fix it. I mean I love Linux. I use it on all of my personal computers. I’ve been able to fix the issues I have but I consider myself an enthusiast. For the average user, seeing a blinking cursor on a black screen when they boot or after they updated its generally the end of their switch-to-Linux journey. Something I’ve passionate about over the last 6 months or so. But acting like Linux is perfect and anything wrong is user error doesnt make the community look good because everyone else knows that’s just not true.
 
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AltTabbins said:
This is a standing issue from 16 up to 19. Including the current LTS. Its also extremely common, enough so where there’s dozens of YouTube videos about it and hundreds of topics on forums asking how to fix it. I mean I love Linux. I use it on all of my personal computers. I’ve been able to fix the issues I have but I consider myself an enthusiast. For the average user, seeing a blinking cursor on a black screen when they boot or after they updated its generally the end of their switch-to-Linux journey. Something I’ve passionate about over the last 6 months or so. But acting like Linux is perfect and anything wrong is user error doesnt make the community look good because everyone else knows that’s just not true.
Click to expand...

Laptop or desktop? Nvidia Prime if laptop?

On a desktop I've never experienced this issue, but I can imagine it could be an issue on a laptop with [shudder] switchable graphics solutions.

With Nvidia bundling Nvidia drivers in the installer hopefully this will be minimized to some degree. For the record, AMD/Intel switchable graphics solutions under Windows are also far from perfect.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Laptop or desktop? Nvidia Prime if laptop?

On a desktop I've never experienced this issue, but I can imagine it could be an issue on a laptop with [shudder] switchable graphics solutions.

With Nvidia bundling Nvidia drivers in the installer hopefully this will be minimized to some degree. For the record, AMD/Intel switchable graphics solutions under Windows are also far from perfect.
Click to expand...

So far 3 laptops and a desktop.

Desktop in my signature with Ubuntu. The rest of the distros I’ve tried work fine.

XPS 15 - i7 7700hq, Nvidia and intel switchable graphics. Ubuntu, Mint, Solus, Manjaro have the issue.

Precision m3800 - i7 4790hq Nvidia Quadro m and intel switchable graphics. Ubuntu, Manjaro have the issue. Didn’t try installing Solus.

Latitude 5501 - i5 something, intel gpu. Ubuntu Mate, Mint.

I’ve had 100% success with Pop OS and taking with the devs about it, they pre-edit the config that ships with the distro. They also edit the configuration of the driver to eliminate screen tearing on the desktop and in video which is something I’ve been fighting with for years on Linux. Pop os works great on everything listed above. Switchable graphics are terrible on Windows for most OEMs. Especially HP where most of the time they force you to use their specific graphics driver which sees maybe 1 update in the lifespan of the laptop.
 
AltTabbins said:
So far 3 laptops and a desktop.

Desktop in my signature with Ubuntu. The rest of the distros I’ve tried work fine.
XPS 15 - i7 7700hq, Nvidia and intel switchable graphics. Ubuntu, Mint, Solus, Manjaro have the issue.
Precision m3800 - i7 4790hq Nvidia Quadro m and intel switchable graphics. Ubuntu, Manjaro have the issue. Didn’t try installing Solus.
Latitude 5501 - i5 something, intel gpu. Ubuntu Mate, Mint.

I’ve had 100% success with Pop OS and taking with the devs about it, they pre-edit the config that ships with the distro. Works great on everything listed above. Switchable graphics are terrible on Windows for most OEMs. Especially HP where most of the time they force you to use their specific graphics driver which sees maybe 1 update in the lifespan of the laptop.
Click to expand...

What driver on the desktop if I may ask? The 430 branch gave me issues and a black screen on boot, terminal was reporting dependency issues almost like the PPA was somehow corrupted - 418 was fine, just 430 gave me issues on a number of machines. In the end I installed using aptitude, which pulled all the required dependencies and I was back to happy days again.

Honestly, it's the only time I've experienced an issue with Nvidia drivers under an Ubuntu derivative. Issues on laptops with switchable graphics don't surprise me, I always stick to Intel iGPU's on the few laptops I own.
 
Mazzspeed said:
What driver on the desktop if I may ask? The 430 branch gave me issues and a black screen on boot, terminal was reporting dependency issues almost like the PPA was somehow corrupted - 418 was fine, just 430 gave me issues on a number of machines. In the end I installed using aptitude, which pulled all the required dependencies and I was back to happy days again.

Honestly, it's the only time I've experienced an issue with Nvidia drivers under an Ubuntu derivative. Issues on laptops with switchable graphics don't surprise me, I always stick to Intel iGPU's on the few laptops I own.
Click to expand...

I’m I don’t remember the driver off the top of my head but updating to 418 generally fixes it. Getting to the point where I can do that is a little frustrating at first but once you do it for the first time it’s not bad.
 
AltTabbins said:
I’m I don’t remember the driver off the top of my head but updating to 418 generally fixes it. Getting to the point where I can do that is a little frustrating at first but once you do it for the first time it’s not bad.
Click to expand...

I betcha it's the 430 driver. Try 'sudo apt install aptitude' followed by 'sudo aptitude install nvidia-driver-430'

That fixed the issue for me on numerous machines.
 
I’ll fire it up on my precision tomorrow. I’d love to get Ubuntu LTS running on it since it’s a production machine for me. Thanks for the tips.
 
AltTabbins said:
I’ll fire it up on my precision tomorrow. I’d love to get Ubuntu LTS running on it since it’s a production machine for me. Thanks for the tips.
Click to expand...

Not a problem at all! Fingers crossed!

Bear in mind that I'm assuming you've already added the Launchpad Nvidia driver PPA?
 
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