How I Bricked Windows 10 Build 1703

[DXMember]

So this one day I decided I should finally update to Build 1703 - worst idea ever!

Not only did it completely wipe all my settings and tweaks as per usual - it also managed to brick the bootmanager...

 

On the final restart after updating it first of all had a conflict with an older version of MSI Afterburner - it kept shitting down and telling me that RTSS isn't supposed to run on this Windows version, but Afterburner insisted that it must run and keep starting it up.

So those two got entwined in a fight locking up the operating system.

 

I booted up into Safe Mode to disable Afterburner from running at startup.

Then I noticed a button for "Go back to previous build" (while still in Safe Mode) - that was so tempting, so I clicked it.... nothing happened, and I clicked it again, still nothing happened and I clicked it again... then I gave up and rebooted into "Normal mode".

Except that it wouldn't boot... fortunately enough after second failed attempt it started automatic repair which offered me to check errors on disk  - and I did, and then I rebooted one more time

And voila - the bootloader can't find any operating systems anymore.

 

Windows install media couldn't either... so I had to restore from a couple months old backup, I did manage to retrieve all the missing pieces from the older backup though so it's fine.

And I also learned of KB3073930 )))

[DrMacintosh]

*Obligatory Windows 10 is garbage comment*

 

I love breaking Windows 10! 

 

My home PC is probably due for a total wipe and reinstall. Doing that every few months seems beneficial to me. It doesnt need it but little things have broken here and there. Like the Drive shortcut in File Explorer. Theres no icon there, but the button still works. 

[fuzz0r]

GG

 

I've bricked my windows a couple of times as well, it's always a good learning experience!

[unknownmiscreant]

4 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

*Obligatory Windows 10 is garbage comment*

 

I love breaking Windows 10! 

 

My home PC is probably due for a total wipe and reinstall. Doing that every few months seems beneficial to me. 

Totally agree, I never upgrade windows versions. Always gives more grief than its worth.

[unknownmiscreant]

3 minutes ago, fuzz0r said:

GG

 

I've bricked my windows a couple of times as well, it's always a good learning experience!

I once had this. Mouse worked, but that was it. My background certainly wasn't purple.

 

Crashed it, and subsequent boot attempts failed with file system errors. Thankfully only on the boot manager and C: partition were gonners, and not D: whee I keep all my data. 

[DXMember]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

*Obligatory Windows 10 is garbage comment*

 

I love breaking Windows 10! 

And since the older Acronis media rescue tool doesn't have NVMe drivers I had to first clean install Windows 10, oh but wait... MSDN pulled the download link for my Windows 10 Multiple Editions ISO...

 

So I had to still use the media rescue tool to restore the ISO from within my backup (which took couple hours to retrieve 4GB ISO because the media tool for some reason is horrendously slow, then burn it, mount it, clean install Win10, and find out that newer versions of Acronis don't accept my activation key anymore, and the older installers are nowhere to be found

 

Fortunately enough the only functionality non-activated newer version of Acronis provided was to browse the backup as removable storage, so I could pull the older installer from there, oh but wait.. Windows 10 strongly believes that Acronis True Image HD 2012 is incompatible and refuses to run it even in compatibility mode...

*Unless  you've previously updated from Win7 to 10 with Acronis already installed... which is how I have it originally running

 

So then I had to get Windows7 ISO on the bootable stick, clean install Windows 7 and restore from there...

a piece of cake... wasted entire weekend and a Monday afternoon because I didn't have spare flash sticks and another machine...

[sazrocks]

This crap is why I would be 100% linux if my games supported it. Already have had to do a windows reset (wipes all programs and settings), and may have to do another in the coming weeks.

[Ashleyyyy]

i weirdly never had serious issues with it. i had problems on some machines that were nearly 10 years old, so that's expected.

 

[GoodBytes]

I love how it is the same group of people, that goes on every Windows 10 thread where someone has an issue, just to say that "Windows 10 sucks", and provide no help at all.

 

6 hours ago, DXMember said:

So this one day I decided I should finally update to Build 1703 - worst idea ever!

Not only did it completely wipe all my settings and tweaks as per usual - it also managed to brick the bootmanager...

You mean Version 1703 - Creator Update, not Build. Different things.

That is not normal, all your settings should be kept when you upgrade. As you are saying "as per usual", this indicate that you are installing or doing something on your system that actually breaks the system. What system modifications are you install/doing?

 

 

6 hours ago, DXMember said:

On the final restart after updating it first of all had a conflict with an older version of MSI Afterburner - it kept shitting down and telling me that RTSS isn't supposed to run on this Windows version, but Afterburner insisted that it must run and keep starting it up.

This problem is with MSI Afterburner not complying with Microsoft documentation for its service.  Looking online, MSI has fixed the issue with RTSS version 7.x and onwards. Ensure that you have the latest version of MSI Afterbruner, or, don't install RTSS, you don't need it for overclocking.

 

6 hours ago, DXMember said:

So those two got entwined in a fight locking up the operating system.

Yes, RTSS is stuck, but is reponding... so everything is stuck.... Windows thinks it is loading, but RTSS is stuck in this infinite loop (great coding!)

 

6 hours ago, DXMember said:

I booted up into Safe Mode to disable Afterburner from running at startup.

Then I noticed a button for "Go back to previous build" (while still in Safe Mode) - that was so tempting, so I clicked it.... nothing happened, and I clicked it again, still nothing happened and I clicked it again... then I gave up and rebooted into "Normal mode".

You can't run it in Safe Mode. You need to run it in the Normal Windows or System Recovery mode (Press and hold Shift key then while holding it, click on the Restart menu item and keep holding until you get a recovery menu. OR boot from Windows 10 disk/USB flash drive, and pick "Repair Windows" instead of Install after teh language/keyboard selection screen),

 

Safe Mode is not recovery mode. It's safe mode.

 

6 hours ago, DXMember said:

Except that it wouldn't boot... fortunately enough after second failed attempt it started automatic repair which offered me to check errors on disk  - and I did, and then I rebooted one more time

And voila - the bootloader can't find any operating systems anymore.

In recovery mode, show the command prompt:

Then type and execute:

• bootrec /fixmbr
• bootrec /fixboot

Restart and see if it helps, if not, return back to the command prompt, and now do this:

• diskpart
• sel disk 0
• list vol
  See where Windows is installed, and see where the EFI bootloader is located.
• sel vol <number of volume where the EFI bootloader is located>
• assign letter=X (assuming X is not used, else pick another letter)
• cd /d X:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\ (again, here we assume X, if you picked a different letter, use that instead)
• bootrec /FixBoot
• bcdboot c:\Windows /l en-us /s X: All (X is the letter you picked where you have the EFI bootloader)

First only fixes the boot record, and the second method rebuild it.

 

[DXMember]

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

You mean Version 1703 - Creator Update, not Build. Different things.

That is not normal, all your settings should be kept when you upgrade. As you are saying "as per usual", this indicate that you are installing or doing something on your system that actually breaks the system. What system modifications are you install/doing?

I am not installing anything, the settings that keep resetting to defaults are just toggles from user interface, some manual registry edits, group policies and manually disabling services.

This happened before when I updated to 1607 Anniversary Update and happened again with 1703 Creators Update.

 

I'm not hating on Windows 10 just out of spite, I'm a simple man, I want simple things, Windows 7 just worked for me, Windows 10 is trying to play smart and is frankly way too advanced for me, I like simple stuff that doesn't try to behave like it knows better.

 

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

This problem is with MSI Afterburner not complying with Microsoft documentation for its service.  Looking online, MSI has fixed the issue with RTSS version 7.x and onwards. Ensure that you have the latest version of MSI Afterbruner, or, don't install RTSS, you don't need it for overclocking.

Yes, RTSS is stuck, but is reponding... so everything is stuck.... Windows thinks it is loading, but RTSS is stuck in this infinite loop (great coding!)

Yes it s RTSS's fault, and I am fine with that, I just mentioned it because I found it funny to cause infini-loop and was relevant to explain why I went into Safe Mode.

I don't use Afterburner for overclocking, I just keep it for RTSS to use as on-screen overlay

 

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

You can't run it in Safe Mode. You need to run it in the Normal Windows or System Recovery mode (Press and hold Shift key then while holding it, click on the Restart menu item and keep holding until you get a recovery menu. OR boot from Windows 10 disk/USB flash drive, and pick "Repair Windows" instead of Install after teh language/keyboard selection screen)

I originally went to Safe Mode just to get rid of Afterburner. I just saw the option and my finger itched to click it.

6 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

In recovery mode, show the command prompt:

Then type and execute:

• bootrec /fixmbr
• bootrec /fixboot

Tried that, succeeded, but didn't help

Also tried the 2nd method and it failed with error along the lines of "Disk is locked" or something like that,

I did try to display the disk and volume attributes, there we no "read-only" flags either.

 

Restoring from a backup worked though, but I had to wait till Monday to get a laptop from work.