Windows 8.1 Failure To Boot - Repair Options Don't Work
Jan 11, 2014
I recently upgraded to 8.1 (mistake) and have been having issues with my harddrive. Just today, I restarted my computer only to get a "windows failed to start" message. I went into the recovery options, and attemped a system restore (didnt work), system refresh (recovery media wasn't present), and CMD commands (chkdsk) and even sfc /scannow which I can't seem to get to run, I always get the "Will start on next boot" message, which it never does. So I attempted using an ISO with the windows 8.1 professional. Tried everything I did above, and still nothing. Refresh fails with the CD, and when i try to install a new partition, it only gives me the option of upgrading (which i cant) or reinstalling everything deleting anything in the process. I don't understand why I can't install on a new partition like I did with Windows 7.
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Sep 28, 2013
I just recently installed 8.1 on my desktop. These are the specs:
ASUS M5A97 mobo
AMD phenom II X4 965 BE stock clocks
crossfire HD 7770's
8gb DDR3
500 tv sata internal hard drive 7200rpm.
500w psu.
The problem is, I'm not able to boot up my PC. When I boot, I get the Berta fish logo, with a white dash in the upper left corner. It will stay there and load for as long as I let it. If I hit my reset button then it will take me to the startup repair options. Booting into safe mode from there yields the same result. The only way I've managed to fix it was either a refresh or a system restore.
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Jun 23, 2013
Recently was running a backup program and suddenly I get the Windows 8 blue error screen (the one with the mocking '' icon) and system dies. I turn on and it seems to booting very slowly then it proceeds to do the pre login screen installation of updates. After half an hour or so and with updates on around 70%, system dies again. Now when I turn the machine on it appears to alternate between either hanging for ever on the Windows 8 loading screen or attempting to run an 'Automatic Repair' which invariably results in a blank screen and no fix.
Having read several 'Automatic Repair loop' posts on the net, it appears I need to load the recovery disc and run repair or restore programs from there. Of course the CD I made failed (crappy disc?) so I had to search my original licence email and use the provided link to download and create a new installation disc from a working machine. This disc loads and gives me the option to install Win 8 (presumably a fresh install with loss of files) or a troubleshoot menu. Running the automatic repair option results in a rather inane 'Couldn't do it' message and gives a blank path to a log file. The system restore option prompts me to 'Restart and select operating system before trying this' and i'm not sure how to do this as no such option is given at boot.
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Dec 15, 2013
I just got a refurbished ASUS K75DE laptop, and it came with Windows 8 on it. I am wanting to run a dual boot with Win7, so I disabled fast-boot just fine, and went into the UEFI BIOS and disabled the secure boot.
While I was there, I did like I have always done and set a BIOS boot-up password. I then proceed to boot to my Win7 installer USB Flash drive, but I was running low on battery power so I aborted the install and shut the computer down to try again later.
Now however when I get into BIOS to select boot priority, all options are grayed out except for system time and a few other non-essentials. At the bottom of the first BIOS screen it says "User Level : User" and I can't seem to find a way to reverse this issue. So now I'm stuck, can't boot to anything but the HDD because it is first by default.
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Jun 19, 2014
my sister with "word" or "spreadsheet" stuff. We both had the Microsoft "Works" suite on our computers, so this was not an issue. She has Windows 7 and I had Windows XP pro, but now I have Windows 8.1. I soon found out that my old Microsoft "Works" spreadsheet would not "print" on my new Windows 8.1. It was suggested that I switch to the "LibreOffice" program. I did that. Took a while, but I converted all my previous "word" and "spreadsheets" to the "LibreOffice" program. I'm still learning how to use this program. But at least I can print those spreadsheets.
On a spreadsheet. If I send her a "LibreOffice" spreadsheet she will not be able to open it. There is absolutely, positively, not going to happen, that I can install "LibreOffice" on her computer and that she is going to learn how to use it. She uses her computer for basic stuff that she needs and that's it.
I need a program that I can install on "my" computer, that is "Windows 8.1 compatible and that then when I send her a "word or spreadsheet" she will be able to open and readily use.
Of course, if I could resolve the issue of why my "works" spreadsheet won't print on my Windows 8.1 that would solve everything. FYI, you get an error message that states: No default printer selected. Go to Control Panel and resolve.
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Jun 8, 2014
I have a Dell laptop Inspiron 15R 7537 that came with Windows 8. Yesterday I upgraded to Windows 8.1. Everything seemed to work fine after the upgrade. I shut down and re-booted several times with no issues. When I turned the computer on as usual today, I got the log in screen, then it briefly went to the desktop, then came a gray screen that blocks 99% of the desk top. This gray screen says "please wait" and has a cancel button at the bottom. It hangs forever and the cancel button doesn't work. It gives no other information.
I read several threads on the Microsoft Windows forum and this seems to be a common problem. How to boot using the Windows 8 recovery media disk that came with the Dell computer. I selected Troubleshoot, then Advanced Options, then Automatic Repair. I got a message that it couldn't do an automatic repair, so that didn't work. Next I tried System Restore, but I got a message that there were no restore points available from which to restore. Just to clarify - the Recovery Media Disk I have from Dell is for Windows 8 - not 8.1 - so maybe that's the problem.
The computer is totally worthless the way it is now, so unless there is some fix for the hanging gray screen in Windows 8.1, I would be happy just to reload the original Windows 8 Operating System. At least that worked.
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Aug 12, 2014
I accidentally removed a usb cable from a powered usb hub , and a volume slider of some other program appeared superimposed and floating above my music making program , so I restarted the pc. From then on , it wouldn't start , and kept saying preparing automatic repair, then reached 40% and wouldn't go any further.
I unplugged my 2 external drives because they weren't showing in the bios , and plugged them into my laptop to check they were ok , and I am relieved to say they are.
Since i removed the drives , my desktop ( asus ) will eventually arrive at the blue recovery screen , but all these things that are supposed to fix it , aren't working.
When I try to refresh , it says the drive where windows is installed is locked. I've tried to do a system restore from 3 different restore points and none of them have worked ( one actually cited a mozilla profile as being the cause )
Re-image wont work because it cant find the image file , which is on one of my external drives which are now unplugged. Automatic repair diagnoses , but then says it cant repair. It also will not boot into safe mode.
I can use command prompt, and was hoping I could rename the system hive name , but the command prompt says
X=windowssystem32.
I've tried cd%windir%system32config , but it says " the drive , the path, or the filname is not valid" . I have successfully ran regedit from the command prompt .....
I had no reasons to expect anything untoward before yesterday. The automatic repair thing happened before , about 4 months ago , but i was always able to get out of it by switching it off at the wall. Now that doesnt work and its in an endless loop .
I have hirens bootcd but there are a lot of things on it that i dont know how to use. I was able to get mini xp working via hirens but couldn't access system restore.
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May 18, 2014
my OS is Windows 8.1 64-bit. It boots just fine, but I suddenly found out that something wrong happened with my BCD store. Tried more workarounds but none worked. The last I found How To Restore Windows 8 Boot Options Menu ended on bcdedit error mentioned below. The problem indicates with following signs:
- bcdedit /enum prints error "The boot configuration data store could not be opened."
- bcdboot C:windows prints error "BFSVC Error: BcdOpenSystemStore failed with unexpected error code, Status
= [c000015c]"
- msconfig's boot tab shows empty OSes list (nothing on the tab is clickablle)
- the same with System Properties, Advanced tab, Startup and Restore dialog (OS dropdown has no entries)
- Trying to enter diagnostic boot by Shft + Restart doesnot seem to offer full recovery menu. It boots to GUI boot menu offering Continue or Troubleshooting, Troubleshooting submenu offers Manage UEFI options (this brings me to BIOS setup after reboot) and Shut down. No manage boot options, no other choices.
All of this point me to that my booting configuration is somehow ill (I wonder a bit that Windows still can start).
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Apr 8, 2013
My pc is a hp pavilion 64 bit desktop computer model # P6- 2220t it is 5 months old. It originally came with windows 7 then I upgraded to windows 8. I went ahead and used windows 8 to create an image of my hard disc and store it on a usb external hard drive I also made a repair disc.
Everything went well the pc backed up on scheduled and doing well in backing up. My big problem is this I tried to boot from the repair disc but it won't I looked at the bios but it is different from the type of bios that I am familiar.
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Sep 15, 2014
I accidentally deleted my Fast Boot boot options and when I enable it my laptop restarts and shows the BIOS, without booting into my system(s). However, when I enable CSM boot it gives me option of booting into my systems. I want to restore my Fast Boot options so my laptop boots up faster and basically because my laptop is made for Fast Boot.
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Apr 8, 2014
So system was running perfectly (custom pc, win 8, samsung pro ssd), just did a clean install, fresh drivers, etc. It was running great! ASUS Sabertooth p67 mobo, latest bios.
Then out of the blue, mid game, i get a hard lock up stall. no blue screen but just lock up. shut down and when i reboot, bios didn't find my samsung ssd. unplugged my 2nd sata drive, booted again and now it found the samsung ssd however i got the "no disk found press ctl alt delete"
At this point i ran windows recovery console and did the bootrec fixboot, fixmbr, rebuildbcd, chkdsk party. everything said it was completed successfully.
Now when i boot however i am stuck in an auto repair loop and can never boot into windows 8.
I am thinking the crash is somewhat power supply and/or mobo related. new power supply is on the way and mobo being RMA'ed.
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Jan 18, 2014
I have three options in the Advanced Startup - Use a device menu that I believe are from the previous owner of this Surface Pro. I have ubuntu, linuxmint, and BestCrypt Volume Encryption. How can I remove those options since they do not apply to anything on this device?
I looked in msconfig and nothing but the normal Windows 8 is listed under the boot tab. Also only have the Windows 8 install listed when I run bcdedit.
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Jan 5, 2014
I have this identical problem mentioned here : Scanning and repairing volume (?Volume...) on startup
I think it has something to do with my deleting the 'system reserved' 350mb partition when I reinstalled Windows 8. I don't want it showing in My Computer and when I go into Disk Management and give it a drive letter, this message goes away on boot. But, since I can't merge this very small partition with any other drive, I'm not sure how to not show this drive and not get the scanning message on boot up.
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Feb 14, 2013
when in second screen all the options work axcept for the duplicate screen ,which is the screen that I want,the tv tv screen say not supported,however the extended screen and the second screen only all work ok,what can I do to get the duplicate screen option to display
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Feb 8, 2013
I had a problem where I was running UEFI with secure boot disabled and dual booting with Linux Mint which is UEFI compliant. Mint had installed Grub, Mint's boot manager but I don't like Grub so i installed rEFInd. Unlike Grub rEFInd has support for UEFI and should have worked better as a boot manager. But it gave me problems too. So I had Grub and rEFInd both installed. I could boot to both Mint and Windows but the boot managers, both Grub or rEFInd, would not show at startup like they are supposed to.
I had to boot the PC, then hit Escape getting into my options menu built into the system, hit F9 to get a list of boot options where i could then choose to boot from hard drive, cd rom, usb etc. rEFInd was in this list. Only after choosing rEFInd from here, was I able to open rEFInd and choose Windows or Mint. This is way too many steps to boot into an OS, so i thought i'd try to use the system repair disk to repair my master boot record or the EFI data that the system uses at boot under UEFI. I forgot that i had to run some additional commands under command prompt and just ran automatic repair from Advanced instead.
At this time Windows had no trouble working at all with secure boot enabled if I really needed windows to use secure boot.
It said it found but could not fix the errors. Suddenly, Windows would not boot even with secure boot enabled. I reran the tool 3 times and it didn't work so i wiped the drive and reinstalled Windows from a clean state. I really did not have errors on the system to begin with accept that the system was trying to access my boot managers in an odd manner.. although i could get everything to work.
The automatic repair option should not have made things worse, even breaking my secure boot but it did.
My point of this is to show that the repair disk tools and how they play with the EFI boot tools is buggy and it can break your system even if there is nothing wrong with Windows and it's ability to boot under secure boot. Don't trust the Repair Disk tool folks. Don't trust UEFI. Don't trust Secure Boot. Be smart. Install a clean system under Legacy Bios mode with UEFI and secure boot disabled.
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Jan 23, 2013
I have a Windows 7 / Windows 8 dual boot setup that was initially working fine. When attempting to update the graphics drivers in Windows 8 last week, something went wrong and the system crashed. Now when I attempt to boot into Windows 8, it goes into the Attempting Automated Repairs loop which never finishes, even when left running for several hours. I attempted to boot off of the Windows 8 installation CD and do a Refresh but it just errors out saying Windows could not be refreshed.
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Feb 7, 2014
Since upgrading to windows 8/8.1 x64 i have twice had this situation when during boot up windows tries automatic repair & fails , every time i restart same repair fail happens , its stuck in this cycle , neither "Refresh" or "Reset" option works , . I have to do a fresh format & install , loose all my files stored in the OS partition , I even tried to recover the files using linux boot cd but the folders were inaccessible/corrupted .
I tried every solution i could find to make it boot including Unable to refresh or reset PC after Automatic Repair fails in Windows 8 but nothing worked .
This has happened twice in the one year since i have been using Win 8 , Is there any way to avoid this from happening i future ?
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Sep 15, 2014
I have been running my desktop system under WIndows 8.1 since release, and I started having a problem the other day.
The system seems to have hung up completely, so I powered it down (it is usually up 24 x 7 since I use it as a DVR along with my computer usage).
It seemed to be ok when it powered up, but then a bit later it asked to reboot to finish installing updates.
It has not booted since.
During reboot, it displays the Windows logo and the spinning dots for a few seconds, and then the screen blanks, and my monitor loses signal. I have left it for quite a while and it doesn't come back. After some time, it goes into sleep mode (slowly flashing power indicator), so something is going on at some level. I have powered off and back on, and removed the power cord for a minute to see if anything different happened... it doesn't.
I have tried pressing F8 and Shift-F8 during reboots to try to get to safe mode, but so far no good. Last night, I used my laptop and seem to be able to access shares, but unfortunately it appears that the things I want/need most are not shared.
The bad part is that I haven't been able to locate my recovery disc, but I will continue to look.
I bought the system with Windows 7 right before 8.0 was released, and When 8.0 came out, I got the cheap upgrade and before loading it, installed an SSD for my C: Drive, and kept the existing HDD for my D: Everything has been running well until this incident.
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Sep 15, 2014
Acer Aspire V5 is the PC I am using. I turn it on, the boot fails and the pc restarts. Then begins an automatic repair, which crashes and the PC turns off. It is a loop I cannot get out of. I don't have a Windows 8 Disc or anything like that.
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Feb 10, 2013
I have Windows 8 64 bit Pro Edition working fine using UEFI boot from a SSD disk. I've twice created a system repair disk on DVD but when I use boot override in the BIOS to boot from the DVD, I get the message "Non-system disk....
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Dec 26, 2013
On my friend's Dell Inspiron laptop, Windows 8 will not boot. I want to boot to the repair disk to restore an image I had created. F12 on boot does not show the DVD drive as an option. I went into Setup/Boot and disabled Secure Boot, still did not show the DVD as a boot option. I went back to Setup and selected Boot List Option>Legacy. Now it shows the DVD drive as an option to boot. I booted the repair dis, went through all the dialogs to select the image I had created, but when it goes to restore it it says it cannot because the image was made in UEFI, and it is now set for BIOS.
I went back into Setup/Boot and I see that the option Load Legacy Option ROM is now Enabled, it did it on its own. As a test I set it back to the defaults and re did it as above, and again it automatically changes Load Legacy Option ROM, which I assume is what is creating the problem.
So my question is what do I need to do to boot from the Windows Repair Disk?
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Oct 17, 2013
I have windows 8 installed on c drive and Linux mint installed on separate hard disk. Everything was working fine before I installed kubuntu from Linux mint. After installation I couldn't get into windows 8 because it was giving error message 0*c000000f. I tried to refresh Windows but no avail because windows has locked that drive and I couldn't access it. Than I decided to backup important files from windows 8 hard disk from Linux. I accessed windows 8 drive but three folders were missing "Windows" , "Users" and "Program Files(64)" other than that I can access all files and problem is all important data is in user folder.
Than I installed windows 8 on different partition still same thing cant access those three folders. Is there any possible way to simply access user folder?
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Mar 9, 2014
I partitioned my hard drive and installed a second copy of my Windows 8.1
I like to experiment with registry settings, tweaks, etc so I use the second installation as a guiney pig, leaving my primary copy untouched.
My question is how to I get the second copy listed on the graphical Boot Options Menu? Right now, I have to press [ESC] on reboot to select it in BIOS settings.
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Jun 23, 2014
My pc froze when I was browsing the web. It gave a blue screen with a sad face emoticon saying it had encountered a problem and needed to restart.
Upon restarting it tried to repair / restore but crashed again and restarted again. I have tried booting to a USB loaded Windows 8.1 pro setup. The Win 8 "setup fish" appears however it doesn't actually enter setup. After a moment the "setup fish" disappears and the screen goes black for a moment then a message is displayed on a blue screen saying File:windowssystem32ootwinload.exe could not be loaded. I wondered if this means it is still trying to boot the OS so i disabled the hard drives in bios just leaving USB but Windows 8 setup still won't boot and I still get the same error message.
My motherboard is an ASUS p7p55d. At the moment I am just using my phone to write this.
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Sep 15, 2014
I have messed up my computer I need to work on! Basically, I had a freeven pro virus which I have identified by some malware software and I have deleted the registry folders where my several viruses were located. In the process I also I disabled the SYSTEM to control my account (task manager?).
The effect is that the computer at start up shows weird signs instead of English (so I can't even identify troubleshoot- but by now I've tested all options anyways and there is no reaction) but also doesn't want to log in.
The windows key is on the system of the computer (how smart) and I have no access to original cd as im away. Can I automatically repair it somehow from boot or how do i put a windows on usb to repair the computer from it?
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Jul 19, 2013
Just reinstalled windows 8, loaded everything up and had it perfect. Then I installed a windows update (could it have been 8.1?) and then my computer would not boot. It got stuck on the windows 8 logo with the circle just spinning. After I restart it tries to automatically repair but that doesn't work. I popped the Windows 8 disc in and tried to do a system restore using a restore point but it said "You need to select an OS. Please restart the system and select an OS". ??? I'm not dual booting! Windows 8 is the only OS installed!
Tried safe mode but the windows logo just hangs. Any possibilities to salvage this before doing yet ANOTHER reinstall or refresh or whatever.
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Apr 20, 2013
I recently purchased an Asus N56VJ with Windows 8 pre-installed. At first I was trying to downgrade to Windows 7, but could not get past the windows splash screen trying to do a clean install . Anyway, while I was trying to figure out how to install windows 7, I was messing around in the bios. I decided to just stick with the Windows 8, but my bios is screwed up. I do not have any boot configuration options anymore. I tried to flash my bios, but the bios was still the same. I did a full reset on my machine, and still no change in the bios. Is there any way to get my bios options back to the factory settings with all the options?
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Aug 22, 2013
It is a Toshiba satellite L675 and the stickers indicate it is a windows 7 model. However, when I open the machine and turn it on, I am welcomed by the windows eight logo. Past this, I get an endless wait time. It alternates from no message to preparing automatic repairs from boot to boot. I have tried to go into its preperscibed setup mode (f2 at startup) and the boot menu (f12 at startup) neither of these have taken me to a bios or any other interface. I have tried ctrl+f8 and have gotten no success. I have also tried every function key and ctrl plus every function key individually.
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Jan 2, 2014
I had my system set up for Dual boot (on separate hard drives) for both Win 8.1 and Win 7. Win 8.1 developed a problem and unfortunately the only back up I had (my fault) was for Win 8 before I installed Win 7 and the dual boot.
I reinstalled from the backup and then updated Win 8 to 8.1. Both the Win 8.1 64 bit and the Win 7 64 bit work OK but the dual boot is now missing in Win 8.1.
Is there any way of repairing/creating the dual boot, either in Win 7 or Win 8, without using BCD Edit?
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Mar 17, 2014
Some Three Months ago, I updated online my WIN 8 Pro OS to WIN 8.1,Since when it has run without any problems, but Unfortunately this morning,when I switched on my PC, I got the following Messages.
1. Preparing Automatic repair
2. Diagnosing Your PC
3. Automatic Repair
4. Your PC did not start correctly - Pressed restart button
5. Repeat of 1, 2, 3
6. Pressed Advance Options button
7. Pressed Continue button
8. Repeat of 1,2, 3
9. Pressed Troubleshoot button
10. Pressed Refresh your PC
11. There is a problem with refreshing your PC
12. Pressed Start Up Repair
13. Start Up repair couldn't repair PC
14. See D:windows system32logfilesmtsattrail.txt
15. Tried System restore but got a message saying No System restores available
16. Selected option for booting from my old WIN 7 Disk
After a short wait my WIN 7 OS booted up successfully and I was able to see the WIN 8.1 OS Disc . I ran my Kaspersky AV on it which came up 'clear', I then ran the OS Disc test which also came up with no errors. Also I Cannot find the log message referred to in 14
Unfortunately I only have my WIN 8 CD, and WIN 8 System Repair disk, which will not work with my current Windows 8.1 installation. I can get into my BIOS by pressing the "del" key on boot, but cannot get into the F8 menu for Safe Mode options.
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Jul 28, 2014
I went into my power options to change some of the advanced settings and most of them are missing? I am on windows 8.1 with a week old Surface Pro 3. I want to say I read somewhere that hyper-v can cause options to be missing, but I honestly don't even know what that is and I don't have it installed.
Screenshot attached
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