T
TJAnderson92
I was running Win 10 Pro 1903 without any issues. Thursday 25 June I tried to update my NVIDIA drivers, resulting in the dreaded "black screen on boot" problem that is all over the NVIDIA forums. I downloaded DDU and removed all NVIDIA drivers in Safe Mode, which allowed me to boot back in to Windows. I tried unsuccessfully to install new or older NVIDIA drivers, each time resulting in a black screen and no signal to the monitor.
After multiple attempts I decided to see if 2004 would make the situation better. I rebooted to safe mode, used DDU to remove NVIDIA drivers, then rebooted to Windows. I opened Windows Update and asked for the update to 2004. It looked like things were moving along, and I left the computer. I returned to see an "unspecified error" (Thanks, Microsoft!), and the system rebooted when I acknowledged the error. I once again had to use DDU to remove NVIDIA drivers before being able to boot the system. At this point I decided to restore the system to the last automatic restore point on 19 June. I've barely used the system this week and thought it wouldn't hurt to roll back a week.
After selecting the 19 June restore point, the system worked and worked for awhile before giving me an error that the system couldn't be restored. After acknowledging the error, the system rebooted and can no longer be started in any manner, not even safe mode. Any option I choose results in the sad face BSOD and a CRITICAL PROCESS DIED error.
Today I used another computer to create an installation DVD. I booted from it, selected install, and chose the upgrade version. The installer then told me I can't use the upgrade command when booting from the DVD; I must perform a clean install!
Going back to the drawing board to fix the no booting error, I came across this MS article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026030/how-to-use-windows-recovery-environment-winre-to-troubleshoot-common-s
I used the tools provided to find my Windows drive which shows up as E when I'm in the recovery environment (It's normally C). Here are the results of the commands indicated in that article:
Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.
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After multiple attempts I decided to see if 2004 would make the situation better. I rebooted to safe mode, used DDU to remove NVIDIA drivers, then rebooted to Windows. I opened Windows Update and asked for the update to 2004. It looked like things were moving along, and I left the computer. I returned to see an "unspecified error" (Thanks, Microsoft!), and the system rebooted when I acknowledged the error. I once again had to use DDU to remove NVIDIA drivers before being able to boot the system. At this point I decided to restore the system to the last automatic restore point on 19 June. I've barely used the system this week and thought it wouldn't hurt to roll back a week.
After selecting the 19 June restore point, the system worked and worked for awhile before giving me an error that the system couldn't be restored. After acknowledging the error, the system rebooted and can no longer be started in any manner, not even safe mode. Any option I choose results in the sad face BSOD and a CRITICAL PROCESS DIED error.
Today I used another computer to create an installation DVD. I booted from it, selected install, and chose the upgrade version. The installer then told me I can't use the upgrade command when booting from the DVD; I must perform a clean install!
Going back to the drawing board to fix the no booting error, I came across this MS article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026030/how-to-use-windows-recovery-environment-winre-to-troubleshoot-common-s
I used the tools provided to find my Windows drive which shows up as E when I'm in the recovery environment (It's normally C). Here are the results of the commands indicated in that article:
[B]SFC /scannow /offbootdir=E:\ /offwindir=E:\windows[/B]Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation.
[B]DISM /image:E:\ /cleanup-image /restorehealth[/B]Error: 2The system cannot find the file specified.The log has entries where it seems to successfully load registry hives, then it gets to this:"Failed to open the registry root: n/a, key Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. [HRESULT = 0x80070002 - ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND]Failed to query path to user profiles directory.Failed to load the default user profile registry hive." etc etcNot sure if it's relevant, but my user data (Documents, Desktop, etc.) is on a separate physical volume from the system drive.I've looked at numerous SFC and DISM articles in an attempt to repair my existing install using the install DVD, but so far I've been unsuccessful. Is there anything else I can try before I give up and perform a clean install on the system drive?Continue reading...