Windows 10 1903 update stuck on Asus logo (Zenbook Pro N501VW)

[litetaker]

Hi there! I am a long time LTT viewer on YouTube, first time LTT forum member. I love the LTT community and feel it is a very good and technical user base so I feel you all may give some useful suggestions to my query. Let's get to that now!

I have an Asus Zenbook Pro (N501VW Signature Edition apparently). This is a few gens old now running the i7-6700HQ, 16 GB RAM etc. It is currently running Windows 10 1803, with the build number 17134.829. It recently seems to have tried to do an update, probably not the 1903 update but some regular updates. But it failed with some Windows failed to boot nonsense. I restarted the PC and it booted fine. I decided to try to install 1903 as 1803 will soon reach its EOL. I tried and failed to install 1903 3 or 4 times. The first 3 were using the Windows update method. The last was by downloading the Windows 10 update tool from the MS website. 

After failing the first time, I thought it was probably due to insufficient free space, even though I had about 60 GB free on my 512~ GB SSD. The next 3 times I tried with about 110 GB free and it always fails the same way. After Windows Update finishes downloading the update and reaches 90+% installing, it says it needs to restart to finish installation. I then restart the PC for the first time during the updating process, hoping that I get the familiar blue screen with a percentage progress of installation. I do get that screen after the reboot, but it hits some 25% or 30% or so and then it abruptly reboots. I feel this is normal as I am used to Windows rebooting numerous times during updates... got used to this by now. But then on this second reboot, it reaches the Asus logo and just stays there... No progress bar, no spinning dots, nothing. And never leaves this screen. The last attempt, with the updater tool from MS website, I went through all these steps and reached the same Asus logo and got stuck. This time I waited for about 2 hours and came back to the same state - stuck at the Asus logo. I reboot from this stage and it usually goes back to the Asus logo and gets stuck again. I wait for a good amount of time and reboot again out of frustration, and this time it says "undoing changes to your system" or something like that and boots into Windows 10 without updating anything.

 

After each of the failed attempts via Windows Update, in the Win Update screen it says "We couldn't install this update blah blah, you can try again." And I saw an error code "0x8000ffff". The version was still 1803.

So, I know MS sucks major balls with respect to updates but this is my first major encounter with an update issue where the update fails spectacularly no matter what! I mean the only saving grace and the only reason MS gets a D grade instead of the failing F grade is because it *AT LEAST* manages to gracefully revert to the previous working state rather than completely bricking my main home computer.

Any clues as to what is going wrong and how I can make it update (without finally bricking my PC)?

[GoodBytes]

My question is why you STILL have 1803, and not 1809?

You skipped a version of Windows 10.

 

They are a number of reason why the update failed.

Let's start with the basics:

• Make sure that ALL your drivers fully updated (this includes printer, chipset, audio, etc.)
• Make sure all your installed games are fully updated. Legacy none-supported games with DRM might 'cause issues. Might be best to remove them.
• Make sure your anti-virus and all other security software are either fully updated or removed (and installed back after upgrading.

Did you have a virus or malware at some time with the current install? Keep in mind that anti-malware and ant-virus only removes the infection, it doesn't fix modified system files.

Did you use a registry cleaner? If you did, you are looking at clean install Windows.

 

 

 

[litetaker]

I believe 1809 was not rolled out to many users due to the massive issues that Microsoft had. So as far as I can tell MS rolled it out, stopped roll out due to issues, tried to fix issues and rolled it out again and then had even more issues so stopped roll out. As far as I can tell a lot of people were left on 1803 intentionally by MS themselves without giving the 1809 update.

As far as your suggestions go

• I will check if all my drivers are up to date
• I do not have any games installed (not an avid gamer! Shocker for this community I know)
• I did not have malware anytime during my usage of this machine as far as I can tell

[litetaker]

I tried doing what you suggested me to do, which is only update the drivers as I don't have games installed and never had any malware issues to the best of my knowledge (unless something is lurking behind without any symptoms). 

I had to update my BIOS as it seemed to be fairly old. After the update I got a different error code: 0xc1900130. There seems to be a bit more meaningful info about this error online than the previous one I got, so I am going to try some of the suggestions provided online by clearing up more disk space. And attempting to redownload the update. Here is a screen shot (attached).

 

UPDATE: I fixed the problem!

So after the BIOS update I ran the Windows Update troubleshooter, and then I also ran an "sfc /scannow" command. But it is likely that the Windows Update troubleshooter fixed some problems. And now my laptop finally updated to 1903. 

It was more trouble than it should be. But hey, at least it worked eventually and it did not brick my PC beyond repair!

Edited June 25, 2019 by litetaker