Win10 no longer bootable after Win7 Update KB4056894 (Meltdo

[Bob Coleman]

If you are worried about something getting overwriten (I don't blame you), you should be reasonably safe if you create an entire disk backup/image before attempting any changes. Just be sure you have something bootable that can be used to restore the entire disk backup if something undesirable happens. My preference is an IFL CD or UFD, but any of IFL, IFD, or TBWinRE should work.

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

I was forgetting that both Windows were on the same drive. Basically, the idea is to get Windows (WinRE/PE, in this case) to see the drive as the booting drive. From your previous screenshot of DISKPART the drive was seen as Disk 1, which means it may not think it was the boot drive. There is no need to create “filler” partitions. The operations to recreate or copy in the BCD/booting files don’t create partitions (they are resetting the MBR code, boot sector code, and recreating the BCD/booting files).

I can understand about disconnecting the drives in a notebook. If the BIOS has options for the SATA ports to disable/enable them, that is a easy way to “disconnect” the drive attached to the port. If there is an option like that then you could try it. Otherwise, just leave it as it is.

Drive and Disk are the same thing. DISKPART says Disk, for example.

Disk 0 is set as the booting drive in the BIOS? If so, why do you have the “Swap” option selected for Win8_10 boot item? That may cause issues, though probably not when booting the recovery media since not booting the boot item.

I assume your second drive is MBR (not EMBR). This limits being able to fill/clear partitions in the boot item.

Since BIBM and both Windows are on the same drive, if you reset the MBR code it will require reactivating BIBM. Resetting the MBR code and boot sector code are suggested for trying to fix the “locked drive” issue. To do this:

1. Make sure you have your BIBM boot media to reactivate afterwards.
2. Boot to BIBM and make sure the Windows 10 partition is loaded in the MBR and is active (like you show in your screenshot).
3. Boot to your recovery media and run the Command Prompt.
4. Determine the drive letter of the Windows 10 partition. I’ll use C: here.
5. Run the following command. This will reset the MBR code and the boot sector for the Windows 10 drive and partition. (These commands do not depend on the drive being seen as Disk 0 since they specify the actual drive.)
bootsect /nt60 c: /force /mbr
6. Run the following command. This will recreate the BCD and booting files.
bcdboot c:\windows /s c: /f BIOS
7. Rebooting the system at this point should try to boot directly into Windows 10.

[sigi]

The results were (I hope the translation from German can be understood because I am not so familiar with the terminology):

Re Step 5
"The destination volumes hve been updated with startcode compatible with BOOTMGR."
"The startcode for the NTFS file system has been updated successfully."
"Physical drive 1: The startcode has been updated successfully."
"The startcode has been updated successfully on all destination volumes."

Re Step 6
"The start files have been created successfully"

Re Step 7
In contrast to your expectations the system did not boot directly into Win10 but in BIBM. BCD Edit there for the Win10 partition looked quite OK to me.
When booting the Win10 boot item however, the Windows Logo was not succeeded by a black screen as before but by a clock-like animated activity indicator as it had been formerly when booting the functioning Win10 partition. But the expected Login screen did not appear. The activity indicator could only be stopped by powering off.


Further action taken:
==================

Action in Win7
-----------------

I started Win7 with the Win10 partition in the boot item.

The system ran chkdsk on all partitions (Win10 plus the HD 1 partitions, which were also in the boot item).

I succeeded in granting full rights to Administrator. With those I was able to see the contents of drive I: (my Win10 partition) and opened Windows Drive Management. When looking at the properties of drive I: there, a dialog field popped up telling me that the recycle bin was damaged asking me whether I would like to delete its contents. I denied.


Action in RE (started from my Win10 Recovery Disk)
-------------------------------------------------------------

I ran five times the start repair option but it did not find an operating system.
I ran sfc /scannow offline (sfc /offbootdir=c:\ /offwindir=c:\windows /scannow), which told me that the windows resource protection had found and successfully repaired files. But this has not changed anything about the bootability of the Win10 partition


How proceed?
===========

Now that Administrator has got full rights, should I go back to your second posting of Tue Oct 02, 2018 9:19 pm and

1-- create a copy of the current \Boot folder,
2-- remove the current \Boot folder and
3-- copy the \Boot folder from the backup image

as described there?

Any other suggestions? Is the recycle bin problem of relevance here?

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

You could try the Boot files from your backup image, but I doubt it will make a difference since it's booting past that point now. What you're describing sounds more like the registry (or more) may have been corrupted. You might be able to do a System Restore (restore point) if enabled and functioning or a reinstall/upgrade of Windows 10 (keeping your files -- not a clean install) and get it working again. Otherwise, you may be left with the choice of restoring the old backup and then copying in your new/updated data files from your current backup or doing a clean install.

[sigi]

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:

> .......
> .......
> or a reinstall/upgrade of Windows 10 (keeping your files -- not
> a clean install) and get it working again.......

I assume you refer to the RE menu sequence "Troubleshoot – Refresh or reset your PC or use advanced tools" > "Refresh your PC – If your PC isn't running well, you can refresh it without loosing your files."

If I do this I still get the message "The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again."

Can you imagine what could keep the drive (or rather the partition, because I can access the SSD e.g. for booting Win7) locked? I have called the Support of the Notebook manufacturer (MEDION Akoya) and Microsoft on this but they could not help me. Microsoft resorted to the proposal not to keep Win7 and Win10 on the same disk because the do not support this anyway!? I for my part would rather stay with my configuration having both on the faster disk. As a consequence I will have to create images much more frequently.

I had the impression that the MS expert wanted it to be understood that MS considers the entire disk as their playground and that updates to an OS on it could always produce colateral damages to the other windows. If this impression is correct, I doubt whether CyberSimian's filler partitions would be a one-hundred percent safeguard against windows update damages.

As you already mentioned, I am left with two options:

1-- restore my rather old Win10 image with a lot of Win Updates and its ionherent dangers to be done, but keeping my Windows customizations and making use of the user data of the lost Win10 partition, which through your valuable assistance can now be handled with full rights.

2-- use the MS Media Creation Tool in order to make a clean installation with the most up-to-date Win10 version and making an Inplace Upgrade thereafter, again making use of the user data of the lost Win10 partition. In this case I would only lose my old Win10 customizations.

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

I am facing now two cataract operations on 10 and 17 October, which will prevent me from pursuing this thread any further for a few weeks. But I think it is terminated anyway unless you come up with an idea how to unlock the Win10 partition. In that case I would resume the thread, for I will not proceed with step 1 or 2 above until sufficiently recovered from surgery.

[DrTeeth]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2018 11:22:00 EDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
sigi disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>I am facing now two cataract operations on 10 and 17 October

Cripes! They are too close apart and you would not have recovered your
sight from one before you have the other. I had three months between
my cataract operations. No way would I have them a week apart.
--
Cheers,

DrT

"If you want to find out what is wrong
with democracy, spend five minutes with
the average voter". - Winston Churchill

[sigi]

@ Dr.Teeth

Thank you Dr. Teeth for your empathy and good wishes for the operation. Everything went well. The one week's interval between the two operations was OK for me but I would advise fellow patients to choose an interval of two weeks. Then the first eye would be robust enough to be used quite normally and exposed to some physical stress.


@ everybody

I had intended to pusue this thread first thing after my cataract operation. But another problem
(FAT 32 to NTFS conversion) had to be tackled first.

I hope I will be able to at least get started before Xmas with one of the two actions oulined in my previous posting i.e.

1-- restore my rather old Win10 image with a lot of Win Updates and its ionherent dangers to be done, but keeping my Windows customizations and making use of the user data of the lost Win10 partition, which through your valuable assistance can now be handled with full rights.

2-- use the MS Media Creation Tool in order to make a clean installation with the most up-to-date Win10 version and making an Inplace Upgrade thereafter, again making use of the user data of the lost Win10 partition. In this case I would only lose my old Win10 customizations.

I will report back any news on this as soon as possible.

[sigi]

I finally managed to take an important step towards a solution of this thread's problem before Xmas. I successfully restored my Win10 image of July 2016 and can now boot from BIBM into Win7, Win7 Safe Mode and Win10. My intention is to download and apply Microsoft Media Creation Tool in Win10 safe mode with networking.

My present problem is that I cannot boot into Win10 Safe Mode. I get it as a choice on the Win10 logon screen (in fact it is Win8 Safe Mode since Win8 was pre-installed and later upgraded to Win10) together with Win10. But when I press the Win8 Safe Mode button, the computer restarts into BIBM with Win7 pre-selected. Shortly before BIBM appears, a black screen with white text flashes up for a very short fraction of a second so that nothing can be read.

So I changed the system start timeout value in windows advanced properties from nothing to 5 sec in Win10 but nothing changed in the above behaviour. CAN YOU HELP ME TO GET THE
WIN10 SAFE MODE TO START ?





Additional info for those interested:
--------------------------------------------

At first I tried to restore the image within BIBM incorporated Image for DOS.

Win 10 started immediately thereafter, Win7 did not as could be expected.

After reactivation or reinstallation of BIBM and or restore of EMBRM (I do not remember which one and in which order I did it) I was able to boot Win7 with BIBM but Win10 was no longer bootable and could not be repaired with the Automatic Repair function of the RE environment. In the end I got the very situation that could not be solved by neither the manufacturer (MEDION-AKOYA) nor Microsft support and which caused me to stop trying to heal the original unbootable Win10 partition (cf. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2925&p=16147#p15828):

Win10 RE told me that the drive was locked and that I should try first to unlock it.


I then successfully tried to restore the image with IFL and and arrived at the situation described at the beginning.

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

Usually, Windows configures the next boot-up to use the mode selected (WinRE, Safe Mode, etc.) and then does a normal reboot. You can try booting the item normally from BIBM.

Otherwise, you may need to edit the BCD and enable the legacy menu options so you can interact with the F8 menu (for example). See the last section of this article: https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=322

[sigi]

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:

> Usually, Windows configures the next boot-up to use the mode selected

which is possibly the very short flashing black screen I mentioned.

> (WinRE, Safe Mode, etc.) and then does a normal reboot.

In my case the next boot-up is directly into BIBM (with the flashing back screen shortly before)

> You can try booting the item normally from BIBM.

It boots normally from BIBM but F8 has no function there.

> Otherwise, you may need to edit the BCD and enable the legacy menu options
> so you can interact with the F8 menu (for example). See the last section of
> this article: https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=322

The command line from KB 322 "bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes" hit the bull's eye. The result is exactly as I wanted it. I boot into BIBM, choose the Win10 item, boot it and press F8. The appearing selection screen is shown in the Attachment.

I am hoping now that I will be able to bring up to date this rather old Win10 either by direct Updating or by means of the Microsoft Media Creation Tool (for this to work I had to restore the image because otherwise I would have had to reinstall my OEM intallation disc, which came with inherent license number unknown to me and which is based on UEFI with all their special partitions I had got rid of).