My desktop had been working fine since I bought it 18 months ago. There were rare incidents when it froze and had to be hard powered off, which I hadn't diagnosed.
After the update last week I reached BSOD. Windows startup repair failed. The failure message was "startup repair offline". Every time I tried to run sfc / scannow I was told it couldn't run it because there was already a pending instruction to do so, please restart. But every time I restarted I had to go through a failed attempt to run startup repair which presumably refreshed the instruction. I thought I had restore points but didn't (my fault). I tried to repair windows from my original bootable windows disk but got the message that it was incompatible with my installation. I created a bootable ISO disk of the correct up to date version of windows (in fact I also tried several other candidates just in case). To all attempts repair I got the same message - please use a disk compatible with your version of windows.
I ran farbar recovery scan tool. This identified backed up system files from two days earlier and restored them. Windows then started to work. I was then able to use sfc / scannow which identified and fixed a large number of system file errors.
I ran a load of malware and other tests which didn't find anything wrong.
I then had a freeze, the cause of which I haven't been able to identify yet though the machine has been working for the last couple of days while I looked for problems.
HDD tests and memory tests haven't found anything wrong. I haven't tried reinstalling the windows update that triggered the problem. Windows updates are now switched off.
Incidentally, making these changes has persuaded Windows to put me in Notification period. It seems a bit like insult to injury after Microsoft's utilities were so spectacularly useless that they then challenge the authenticity of my installation.
After the update last week I reached BSOD. Windows startup repair failed. The failure message was "startup repair offline". Every time I tried to run sfc / scannow I was told it couldn't run it because there was already a pending instruction to do so, please restart. But every time I restarted I had to go through a failed attempt to run startup repair which presumably refreshed the instruction. I thought I had restore points but didn't (my fault). I tried to repair windows from my original bootable windows disk but got the message that it was incompatible with my installation. I created a bootable ISO disk of the correct up to date version of windows (in fact I also tried several other candidates just in case). To all attempts repair I got the same message - please use a disk compatible with your version of windows.
I ran farbar recovery scan tool. This identified backed up system files from two days earlier and restored them. Windows then started to work. I was then able to use sfc / scannow which identified and fixed a large number of system file errors.
I ran a load of malware and other tests which didn't find anything wrong.
I then had a freeze, the cause of which I haven't been able to identify yet though the machine has been working for the last couple of days while I looked for problems.
HDD tests and memory tests haven't found anything wrong. I haven't tried reinstalling the windows update that triggered the problem. Windows updates are now switched off.
Incidentally, making these changes has persuaded Windows to put me in Notification period. It seems a bit like insult to injury after Microsoft's utilities were so spectacularly useless that they then challenge the authenticity of my installation.
