Holy ...., SFC did something useful for once!

[mikeymikec]

I'm not sure I've ever seen sfc /scannow actually fix a problem for me A customer's computer was failing to boot (0x000021A IIRC), the recovery environment (when booting off USB) was telling me that a file was corrupted but it couldn't tell me which one, and this guide:

How to run sfc /scannow from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) | Dell UK

Describes how to do sfc /scannow on an offline Windows install. The machine booted on the next attempt!

... well, the machine has booted, allowed me to log in but now it's failing to start explorer etc. Still, it's an improvement

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I made the same comment a couple of weeks ago. SFC commands have been fairly useless IME. DISM a little better. chkdsk back in the win7 days was more useful for me. It has worked somewhat on laptop HDDs with earlier builds of win10, but I haven't used it in a couple of years.

I have seen that explorer issue quite a few times. If it is 10 home or pro, an in place install is the generic fix.

 

[igor_kavinski]

... well, the machine has booted, allowed me to log in but now it's failing to start explorer etc. Still, it's an improvement

Now just refresh or reset it from the Update and recovery option.

 

[mikeymikec]

@DAPUNISHER @igor_kavinski

I think an in-place upgrade is out of the question unless I manage to fix the current install a bit more. Right now logging in as the main or a test user doesn't work (explorer doesn't respond / start depending on which way the wind blows). Safe mode login doesn't work either (same prob). Safe mode command prompt does work, and with that I can access the event viewer (and weirdly can't in normal mode, it seems that anything aside from cmd.exe that attempts to draw a window fails, even say BlueScreenView). I changed the shell for a test user to be cmd.exe which allows a normal mode login straight to the command prompt, but since it's not an admin command prompt I can't do much with it. I'm thinking of modifying a VB script I wrote to invoke UAC but I doubt it'll work. I'm also thinking of researching a command line method of disabling UAC so that I can get an admin command prompt and hopefully run dism from it. Hmm, I wonder if I could enable the default administrator account and bypass UAC that way. At the moment I'm taking a break from it as that computer's been doing my head in today!

I can very likely do a reset from Windows Setup but if I'm up for that level of destruction I may as well go all the way and do a clean install.

 

[igor_kavinski]

How to use DISM in WINDOW PE environment? - Windows 10 Help Forums

i am trying to repair my windows(i cannot boot to windows 10 and i tried automatic repair three times already). Can't even boot to safe mode. Keeps getting pci.sys corruption error at boot up. So i am

www.tenforums.com

Maybe that dism command will help?

Post #7 seems promising too.

 

[mikeymikec]

@igor_kavinski

I tried my idea first of enabling the admin account and a normal mode cmd.exe shell and it ran dism ... /restorehealth successfully However, the total upshot seems to be that I can now run eventvwr in normal mode rather than safe mode only. Task Manager still won't start.

In an attempt to allow other users to log in and get an explorer shell and keep the administrator user on a cmd shell, I inadvertently get a situation whereby a test user got a File Explorer window rather than the explorer UI. I then got the idea of starting cmd.exe via explorer but explorer hung the moment I tried to access C drive.

I'm fairly sure C drive is OK as I ran chkdsk /f /v /r on it and nothing alarming cropped up.

I think I ought to pull the trigger on a clean install as I'm running out of ideas and I've got little to go on (I'll have another trawl through eventvwr to see if I can spot anything to act on). Weirdly though, the customer previously gave the go-ahead for a clean install "if I have to", then when I rang them this morning to keep them updated with progress, they asked me to ring them before doing a clean install. Maybe they want some extra reassurance first, e.g. yes I've backed up their data.

I wonder if I could run transwiz on the main user's profile with Windows in this borked a state, as it would surprise me if anything is seriously wrong with the profile data considering how Windows is acting to any user attempting to log in with explorer as the shell. Managing to grab the user profile and drop it on a new install would help the customer get back on their feet with this PC quicker.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I wonder if I could run transwiz on the main user's profile with Windows in this borked a state, as it would surprise me if anything is seriously wrong with the profile data considering how Windows is acting to any user attempting to log in with explorer as the shell. Managing to grab the user profile and drop it on a new install would help the customer get back on their feet with this PC quicker.

Thanks! Didn't know that software existed. Seems very useful. Things were so easy with Windows XP before Microsoft got really security conscious and locked down OS folders with all sort of system level permissions.

I once rescued a borked Windows XP installation by doing a fresh install and then overwriting the existing Program Files/User folders and Windows registry hive with the old one with a simple copy paste from a WINPE boot disk. The resident IT guy used to not think much of me before that but on that day, he thanked me profusely coz the system belonged to our Managing Director and we got it functional before he came back from lunch

 

[JackMDS]

INplace of Win 10/11 actually installs New OS and keeping Apps/Pic/Docs etc.

The type of problem that you experience seems to be a Core problem, so Inplace would probably would solve it.

Beside waht the big deal. If you do Inplace and it work then OK. Otherwise you can follow with fresh Install. Inplace does not take long in Win 11, so you don't really lose anything by trying.