Post updates, UEFI BSD repaired, restore indicates "Failed update", DISM cleanup and restore fail

sparkymcdook · Dec 2, 2019

##Note: situation is unique in that I cannot boot windows at all so tools like SFCFix will not work
Windows 10 10.0.18362.476 Professional was recently working fine, but after a large number of patches, firmware updates and driver updates, the laptop went into a no-error displayed boot loop (had a momentary lapse in judgement and let updates go wild/all in).

BSD issue - Solved:
Via USB latest ISO boot, repair indicated "No disk found" etc. Long story short, duplicate BSD UEFI IDs were found on both the correct NVMe disk with Windows and one thats just a second data disk (never wanted to boot from).

Windows real boot issue (patching):
That was resolved and I rebuilt the BSD correctly with it now at least attempting to boot from the correct disk and windows location, however its still not booting (no safe mode, cmd, etc.) and no recovery environment (got killed by Bitlocker before and never addressed)
Now SrtTrail.txt indicates "A patch is preventing the system from restarting". Makes sense being this blew up everything.
SFC offline runs and comes back clean
When using offline DISM Image option with /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth pointing to the Windows.ISOs install.esd file as the /Source, the process errors with a 0x800f081f for 9 found "Corruptions". All 9 are with the familiar component:
amd64_windows-defender-management-powershell_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.18362.449_none_399f5f2632e852c4
files:
MSFT_MpComputerStatus.cdxml
MSFT_MpThreat.cdxml
MSFT_MpThreatCatalog.cdxml
MSFT_MpThreatDetection.cdxml
MSFT_MpPreference.cdxml
MSFT_MpScan.cdxml
MSFT_MpWDOScan.cdxml
MSFT_MpSignature.cdxml
Defender.psd1

I would not expect this to halt the ability to boot, particularly in Safemode, but I am unsure with everything that happened at the same time. In any case, this is almost identical to this post: ([SOLVED] - SFC corruption, DISM cannot fix, and SFCfix crashes on scanning.) Except the newer version and fact mine is not booting at all.

Attached is the CBS, DISM, SRT logs. Any help would be massively appreciated.

britechguy · Dec 3, 2019

There truly comes a time where Doing a Completely Clean Install or Reinstall of Windows 10 is the most rational, and best, solution.

You mention Bitlocker, which makes it even more likely this is the best solution. I do hope you have had a backup protocol in place, at least for your user data, but based upon what's been offered so far I fear that may not be the case.

If your data were not encrypted, it would be a relatively simple matter to extract it from your drive before wiping the slate clean and starting over again from scratch. This is one reason I tell all my clients to think carefully, very, very carefully, about whether having an encrypted drive is really necessary.

I just do not see any way to get around this other than starting again from scratch just based on what you've stated in your message. After you do this, and have your system configured as you'd like it to be and the software you use installed, you absolutely must institute a backup protocol where you take a full system image backup and separate user data backup at regular intervals for your system. Having same allows one to recover from all sorts of catastrophes quickly and with relative ease. It's the cheapest insurance policy you can get now that external backup drives with huge capacities are well under $100 during most of the year and even cheaper during the holiday season.

sparkymcdook · Dec 3, 2019

Yeah I am almost to the give up point, however it was this final "stairing down the barrel" desperation that made me seek out some other expert eyes after finding the very similar post here (although that one was booting making it more strait forward). I should also add some situation context around the scenario here:

The Bitlocker mention is a corporate requirement based on the data I interact with, I just mentioned it because that's what killed WRE of which I never addressed post encrypt to re-enable WRE. Which had WRE been properly setup with checkpoints, this likely would have been a trivial fix after recovering from the BCD issue whatever update caused via a quick reversion of all updates and sys state. BitLocker is a complete non-issue currently as I completely decrypted it for this issue in PE CMD (to keep from typing the recovery key on every PE boot to unlock the drive more than anything).
My user data is also a non-issue and I have it all which is actually stream version synced up constantly to a local SMB server in my house. No worries here.

The real crux of the problem is my applications and the OS configuration. I have some keys and PK certificates for a lot of software, of which chasing down each of them with the vendors and management teams to reclaim the orphaned keys is a unreal pain. The configuration tuning Ive done to this point is also a significantly large burn. Totally doable if I have to rebuild scorched earth, but will take more time than it took me to build this workstation as it was, which took me the greater part of 2 Months to finesse it to the final tuned state it was in before these updates blew it up. So it really is down to time investment recovery only. I know 100% there is nothing wrong with the system outside of whatever damage these updates did to the OS and BCD, which blows my mind how much worse Windows 10 is to troubleshoot start issues, at least for me, so was looking for hopeful help.

Sysnative Windows Update · Dec 3, 2019

Hi!

Let's try this, skip steps 1 and 2 as you can't boot.

Revert Pending Changes
1. Click your Start button so it brings up the Start Screen.
2. Hold down your left Shift button while you click the Power button in the upper-right and choose Restart. Note: Keep the shift button held down while the machine restarts until the Choose an Option screen shows.
3. Click the Troubleshoot button.
4. Click the Advanced Options button.
5. Choose the Command Prompt button.
6. Select your account and put in your password if prompted.
7. Once the command Window is displayed please follow the below steps.
8. Type notepad into the command prompt and hit enter.
9. Click the File menu in notepad and choose Open. Click on the This PC icon on the left hand side so that you see all the drive letters. You sill see Boot (X:) and likely others. Look for the drive letter that is associated to Local Disk. It won't be drive letter X. If you are unsure which one represents your local disk you can double-click on each drive and look to see if there is a Windows directory in it. That will be the drive letter we are interested in.
10. Once you've identified the driver letter you may cancel out of this screen and close notepad.
11. Now type the following into the Command Prompt replacing C (shown in red) with the drive letter you identified in bullet#9. Note: there is a space after C:\ as well as before the last forward slash.
DISM /Image:C:\ /Cleanup-Image /RevertPendingActions

12. If all goes well you will see the following as the last few lines. Please let me know if you don't.

Code:

Reverting pending actions from the image...

The operation completed. Any revert of pending actions will be attempted after reboot.

The operation completed successfully.

sparkymcdook · Dec 3, 2019

Hey Softwaremaniac. Thank you for checking this out!

My PE boot still puts the primary VOL as C:. The execution ran, with the added requirement of a defined Scratch directory. The command was as follows (E:\ is my USB Fat32 partition):
DISM /Image:C:\ /Cleanup-Image /RevertPendingActions /ScratchDir:E:\Scratch

Output is as follows:

Code:

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Image Version: 10.0.18362.476

Reverting pending actions from the image...

Error: 0x800f082f

An error occurred reverting the pending actions from the image.
For more information, review the log file.

The DISM log file can be found at X:\windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log

The DISM log from this run is attached...the "2019-12-03 16:26:46" is the start point of the execution that ran into the above error (prior was a failure due to insufficient scratch):

britechguy · Dec 3, 2019

A serious question for @softwaremaniac, as I feel certain I must be missing something, but how can any of those steps be taken if one cannot boot? I suppose one could try the "triple hard power down" option - holding in the power button until the machine turns off, then on the third power up one might get the Choose an option screen, but I'm not even certain about that.

@sparkymcdook: I'm really sorry, but I can't give you "hopeful help" because I believe any hope anyone might try to create will likely end up dashed. A point worth making based on your final observation, "blows my mind how much worse Windows 10 is to troubleshoot start issues," is that this is really unlikely to be a simple start issue. All suggestions are that there is very significant corruption. Any time I see a system where "all the usual utilities" are failing, and miserably, my primary concern is getting a fresh, baseline installation of the latest Windows 10 that can be depended upon. I have a "standard Windows 10 revival script" that includes quite a bit of what you already had done, the last step of which is the "thermonuclear option" of a completely clean reinstall.

I sincerely hope that you may be able to avoid it, and wish you all the luck in the world in working out a solution. I just have my doubts that there is "a fix" waiting to be found.

Sysnative Windows Update · Dec 3, 2019

Hi, Brian

Yes. After the triple hard boot, the computer should start diagnosing and then give users access to the Troubleshooting options from where they can access the CMD and try the command above. It can be useful if an update or a feature installation has wreaked havoc.

@sparkymcdook DISM failed because some of the hives could not be accessed and unloaded.

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Post updates, UEFI BSD repaired, restore indicates "Failed update", DISM cleanup and restore fail

sparkymcdook

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britechguy

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sparkymcdook

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Sysnative Windows Update

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sparkymcdook

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britechguy

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Sysnative Windows Update

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