Windows stuck in bootloop

[m16ali]

Hi there!

 

My laptop is stuck in a boot-loop, with a BSOD (critical process died) showing up a few second into the startup process. 

 

The last actions I performed were updating the graphics card driver (MX-130) and installing a windows update. However, the windows update kept failing and wouldn't install, even after multiple retries. After the failure, I could log in to windows but the laptop kept crashing randomly (almost as if somebody were disconnecting the power and it turned off immediately). I suspected it to be a hardware issue but since I also have Ubuntu installed and I wasn't experiencing any such issues in linux, I don't think it is a hardware issue anymore. It seems like that the random crashes have caused some sort of file corruption and now I can't boot to windows.

 

I have tried running the startup repair, as well as repairing using a windows 10 USB, but the repair process fails. I had also tried the system restore utility the very last time I was able to login, and it did restore successfully, but the issue persisted. I'm now unable to use system restore any further from the Windows Recovery Environment because it keeps saying that drive protection is not turned on. Using Safe Mode from Win RE also ends up with the same blue screen.

 

I'm trying to avoid a complete reinstall of the windows as I would have to do quite a lot of work setting up all the programs, and unfortunately i did not do a system wide backup before running into the issue.

 

The log files in the directory <C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\

srt> can be found at the following link: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AkNGXoG2B8ahyAzHfi4hse8GXPmb?e=hdnQCQ. 

 

Here are some details regarding the system I'm using:
Acer Aspire E5-576G-59Q9

Intel 660p 1TB M.2 SSD (Boot drive)

8 GB RAM

Intel core i5-8200U

NVIDIA MX-130 Mobile GPU

[NotSoEpicMods]

Do you happen to have malwarebytes installed? My PC kept doing restart loops because malwarebytes didn't install properly.

[m16ali]

1 minute ago, NotSoEpicMods said:

Do you happen to have malwarebytes installed? My PC kept doing restart loops because malwarebytes didn't install properly.

I do, however I did not use it around the time I encountered the issue so I doubt it has anything to do with what I'm facing.

[NotSoEpicMods]

1 minute ago, m16ali said:

I do, however I did not use it around the time I encountered the issue so I doubt it has anything to do with what I'm facing.

I didn't use mine either it just finally bugged out one day and crashed my pc then started the boot looping and preventing updates like the 1909 feature update from installing. Are you able to get into windows at all?

 

[m16ali]

1 minute ago, NotSoEpicMods said:

I didn't use mine either it just finally bugged out one day and crashed my pc then started the boot looping and preventing updates like the 1909 feature update from installing. Are you able to get into windows at all?

 

Nope.. keep getting the blue screen right before sign in.

[NotSoEpicMods]

1 minute ago, m16ali said:

Nope.. keep getting the blue screen right before sign in.

Not even in safe mode?

[m16ali]

2 minutes ago, NotSoEpicMods said:

Not even in safe mode?

Not even in safe mode...

 

I have been trying various solutions others have posted to try to repair the boot by using the command prompt in Win RE but no luck so far with that as well. 

[Rainbow Dash]

Have you tried fixing it with this method? How to use DISM command tool to repair Windows 10 image

[m16ali]

1 hour ago, Rainbow Dash said:

Have you tried fixing it with this method? How to use DISM command tool to repair Windows 10 image

I had not recorded the error messages the last time around so I went over this again. Here's how it went:

 

First I tried running the commands through Win RE (no installation media involved).

 

Using the DISM [Checkhealth] [ScanHealth] [RestoreHealth] options all yield the same error:

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Error: 50
DISM does not support servicing Windows PE with the /Online option.
The DISM log file can be found at X:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log

 

I also noticed that unlike the example in the article, the default path was "X:\WINDOWS\system32>" instead of "D:\WINDOWS\system32>", even though using DISKPART utility reveals the drive letter with the volume that contains the windows installation to be "D:" (I  can recognize this because of the volume size).

 

Next, moving onto SFC /scannow (no installation media involved), I get the following error:

Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.

 

Afterwards, I repeated the entire procedure, but this time booting from the Windows 10 USB I created yesterday (just to be sure it was up to date), selecting the repair installation option and then choosing troubleshoot>command prompt.

Again, the DISM [Checkhealth] [ScanHealth] [RestoreHealth] options, as well as the DISM using WIM, all returned the same error.

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Error: 50
DISM does not support servicing Windows PE with the /Online option.
The DISM log file can be found at X:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log

 

Lastly, I used the SFC /scannow option (After changing the active directory using the command: "cd /D:", as I figured not doing this would mean I would be using the SFC /scannow on the USB, even though the article does not mention this) and I get the following message:

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

 

I was optimistic this might have worked, but when I tried logging into Windows, I was again greeted by the BSOD.

 

[homeap5]

If it crashes right after log in, then indeed it may be your av. You can download somewhere bootable registry editor and disable startup items that way. Also - remove all entries that point to Malwarebytes.

 

If you search for "bootable registry editor" in Google, you'll find two of them - one Linux based, one winPE based. Both are fine.

 

I had two times bootloop on my computer. Once it was hardware related - my soundcard was a problem (cleaning and reseating it in pci slot helps). Second time it was because I tried to install old starforce for run old game. Second case was obvious, but first case not - Linux can boot without problem, because probably it react different to bad hardware than Windows. So it's not that your hardware is 100% ok because Ubuntu boots.

 

You can also use that bootable registry editor to diagnose problem:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CrashControl

set "AutoReboot" to 0.

And then boot and check what causes BSOD.

[m16ali]

4 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

If it crashes right after log in, then indeed it may be your av. You can download somewhere bootable registry editor and disable startup items that way. Also - remove all entries that point to Malwarebytes.

 

If you search for "bootable registry editor" in Google, you'll find two of them - one Linux based, one winPE based. Both are fine.

No, I don't see the login screen at all now. When it started happening, I was able to login and it would happen a few seconds afterwards, but for the last 2 days I can't get to the login screen at all without running into BSOD. Besides if it were a program causing the crash I would suspect using the Safe Mode I wouldn't encounter the issue but I still do.

[homeap5]

40 minutes ago, m16ali said:

No, I don't see the login screen at all now. When it started happening, I was able to login and it would happen a few seconds afterwards, but for the last 2 days I can't get to the login screen at all without running into BSOD. Besides if it were a program causing the crash I would suspect using the Safe Mode I wouldn't encounter the issue but I still do.

Try that bootable regedit. It can't harm you more. If you don't know where autostart programs and tasks are in registry, there is lot of info on internet. There is not just one place in registry - separate are for tasks, for current user, all users, services etc.

 

There is also easy way to check if your system is not a problem. Remove drive and boot that drive in some other computer. If it's driver problem then that kind of action may even help on your laptop, because system will re-enable devices at first boot.

[m16ali]

8 hours ago, homeap5 said:

Try that bootable regedit. It can't harm you more. If you don't know where autostart programs and tasks are in registry, there is lot of info on internet. There is not just one place in registry - separate are for tasks, for current user, all users, services etc.

 

There is also easy way to check if your system is not a problem. Remove drive and boot that drive in some other computer. If it's driver problem then that kind of action may even help on your laptop, because system will re-enable devices at first boot.

Ok, so I followed the instructions as per this article and deleted the registry enteries to stop installed programs from starting up automatically. I also tried disabling the firewall and windows defender, but restored them later since it didn't help.

 

To be absolutely sure that I'm not facing a hardware issue, I swapped the SSD in my laptop into my brother's (we have the exact same system pretty much) and it didn't work, but his SSD booted into Windows just fine when in my laptop. Given that Ubuntu is working fine off of the same drive, I guess we can rule hardware issues out at this point.