[SOLVED] Win10 LOOP Attempting to recover ... Undoing changes

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PeterLander

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Nov 4, 2019
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My HP Pavilion 23 and Win 10 (1803 >> 1809 ?) combination has given me an infinite loop. The HP logo appears; then circling dots; then a very brief message "Attempting to recover installation"; followed immediately by "Undoing changes made to your computer". After a couple of minutes, it starts over. Previously, over the course of a couple of days - using random selections of ESC, F4, F9, and F11, I have managed to get a command line a couple of times. I believe I stopped wuauserv and BITS but have been unable to confirm this. I know I removed windows/softwaredistribution folder and the catroot2 folder. Weeks ago, this behaviour occurred once each couple of days. Now it is continuous at power ON. The ESC at power on gets me into the HP Startup Menu ... but this has no obvious path into a command line dialogue. My local PC servicer recommends starting all over with a new disk drive ... losing apps and data. I would rather not. Any ideas?
 
Usually, if Recovery (startup and repair) fails, it usually comes down to reinstalling Windows, unfortunately.

Have you tried running Windows System Restore from Recovery?

Regards. . .

jcgriff2
 
As stated, I have by chance managed twice to get a command line by banging away randomly on ESC, F4, F9, and F11. But that was some time ago. At no point recently have I had anything remotely like a Win10 user interface. The Recovery screen remains as remote as Mars. When I think more deeply upon it, I guess I'm asking for help to get to the Recovery screen starting from an "Attempting-Undoing" tight infinite loop. I can fairly regularly get the HP Startup interface ... but it will not exit to safe mode or to a command line. I know Win10 abandoned the very useful F8 start ... but surely Microsoft programmers gave themselves some way of getting in?
 
Did that. It works the same as pressing ESC during start. It gives me the Hewlett-Packard (BIOS) Setup Utility. Are you saying I need to make some BIOS changes? If so, which ones? As I mentioned, there is no obvious way to exit from this utility into either a Windows command line interface or a Windows safe mode startup.
 
Storage / Boot order gives me ... UEFI Boot Sources [USB Hard Drive; USB Floppy/CD; Windows Boot Manager; UEFI: IPv4 Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller; UEFI: IPv6 Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller] then Legacy Boot: Disabled. I can enable, disable, or drag to a different order. I assume that "Windows Boot Manager" gets me into the HDD boot that Win10 owns ... so I should say YES to your question.
 
Thank you for that reference. I will buy a USB stick this afternoon and test my HDD tonight ... it will take time and other duties now call. Meanwhile 1) my PC repairman has a shoulder shrug that says "I have no need to investigate - my time will cost you more than just getting a new disk - they are cheap these days" and 2) there has never been any need to suspect the HDD of being in error. This problem started weeks ago. When it started it was a minor inconvenience each couple of days ... but now the frequency is continuous ... it now doesn't want to wait until later to try again and 3) I believe that safemode/commandline will allow me to alter whatever is triggering the "finish installing" activity that is the root cause of all this. I had hoped that disabling wuauserv et al would have had that effect ... but it did not. Win10 is stubbornly insisting that the installation of, I think, 1809 be finalised before it will do anything else. So, while we wait for me to check the HDD ... is there any way of wresting control back from this pernicious update loop?
 
Before you go out and spend money, is there a way, you could borrow a stick from someone? Given that your system is in this state, I'd need to boot it up from some kind of media...
 
Very few - zero - of my friends would have an idle, empty, 16gb USB stick. If I need a stick, I'll buy one. But thinking about that for a moment ... there is no evidence that Win10 is failing ... it is the 1809 update that is failing. Probable cause seemed to me to be an unseemly ripping out of a Brothers printer. Maybe the update needs access to a printer it believes is there ... and crashes because it isn't .. and tries to recover and fails and undoes changes ... and away we go in the loop again. No matter if it is a printer problem or some other problem, basically, it is the attempt to do the finalising steps of an update BEFORE proper Win10 booting that is causing the trouble. Soooo ... suppose I make a recovery Win10 16gb USB stick and again fire it up. Wouldn't the USB version of a Win10 startup have exactly the same problem as did the HDD startup? Will the USB version actually behave differently from the HDD version?
 
Why did you upgrade to the older version in the first place?

I want to run diagnostic tools from the drive, not a Win10 boot USB. If all else fails, then we shall create a bootable USB so you can access (and recover) your data and then clean install to Windows 1903.
 
Typo ... that should have been "upgrading from 1903 to 1909". I have always let Windows look after keeping me totally up-to-date. According to Bleeping (Windows 10 1909 is Getting "Ready for Release", Named November 2019 Update) it is possible that I am an early victim of an early pre-release version? Whatever, I accept that my 1903 version was happily chugging away and is a good resumption point to aim for.

OK. On with the circus. I will close my HP Setup Utility and keep retrying ALT+F10 starts in the hope that I can get Windows Startup Utility and thus get a command line via Troubleshoot >> Advanced ... should I?
 
Woo woo! I have the Troubleshoot screen. An entry in an HP forum advised F11 on startup - instead of ALT+F10.
Anyway ... do I want to proceed to Recovery Manager or Advanced options and Command line interface? I feel anxious that there will not too many chances to get this right ... getting to the Troubleshoot screen has been an unreliable torture. So .... where next?
 
Now that is depressing. I got the SFC help and no action. I switched to uppercase (to match the HELP) and inserted a space before /offwindir (because it seemed like a good idea) ... but got only the SFC HELP yet again. I cannot see any syntax errors.
My prompt line says X:\windows\system32>
Should I substitute X: for C: ?
 
Error 267
Error while accessing the temporary directory
Ensure that the path to the directory exists and that you have RW permits
For more ... use /ScratchDir /?

My command window says "Administrator" and I have not had permissions problems before For example, I removed the softwaredistribution directory without permission problems
 

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