Windows 10 Boot stuck on flashing window - "Press ctrl-alt-del to Unlock" - SFC, DISM, and Startup Repair all fail

Stevereno8

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Aug 22, 2020
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Hi,

I have been unable to get into Windows 10 for about 10 days now. I can't give any specifics of the OS, because I don't know how to find that info without being logged on to the computer. I think it is just on Windows 10 Home 64 bit, but it could be Pro. It is on a Samsung SSD.

I'm not 100% sure how the problem started. I had been using the computer with no issues and left the room for about 30 minutes, when I came back it was on a black screen where a window that says "Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to Unlock" flashes 7 times, then goes black flashes 7 times and loops. If I move the mouse, the arrow icon will show up and I can move it around, but after the 7 flash loop it will go back to the center of the screen. I think the window says "LogonUI.exe" at the top, but it is really hard to tell.

Pressing ctrl-alt-del does nothing. The only key I have found that has any impact is F11, and all it does is make the flashing window fullscreen.

I had a spare hard drive, so I was able to put in a fresh version of window on that, boot up my computer and copy over all the files on the other drive. However, a day or so later, that fresh installation of Windows got stuck in an Update loop and will no longer boot up. I am now on my 2nd fresh install, and it also almost got stuck in an Update loop, but it was able to rollback the update on its own, and I have since turned off automatic updates.

Other than not being able to log in, the only other strange thing I noticed about original hard drive was that a file Hibernate.sys was taking up almost 20gb, leaving the partition with Windows on it with only a few 100 MBs. I was able to get that turned off with command prompts, but the freed space did not help. I had never had this space issue before, so I'm not sure if something flipped the hibernate option on, or if it

Things I have tried on the original hard drive/installation:

- Automatic Startup Repair fails

- I cannot load in Safe Mode. It just gives me a black screen with a mouse arrow (no flashing window)

- Chkdsk doesn't show any errors

- SFC /scannow won't work. It will show:

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation

- DISM also fails. It will quickly get to about 5% and then show "The WOF driver encountered a corruption in the compressed file's Resource Table"

- Using the "reset you PC" option in the startup Troubleshoot menu will fail if I try to keep my user files. It will get to about 50% and then undo changes. I have not tried a full reset, because that is what I am trying to avoid, especially since I have had issues with the clean window installs.

- Trying to roll back windows updates also does not work. System just says it is unable to go back.

I can get logs if you need them; I just don't want to put up too much irrelevant info.

Thanks for any help!
 
Hi!

I'd recommend you test the install, because this seems either like a severe system corruption caused by a failing hard drive or a sudden power loss.
 
I'm not sure if I know what you mean with "test the install." Are you talking about just running chkdsk and SFC on the new install or is there some other way to test it?
 
Both drives passed SeaTools for Window. S3Z1NB0KC69509M is the drive with the installation of Windows that won't work. Z504SR6W was the fresh hard drive with the new install that I disabled automatic updates on, because they were already causing issues.

I also did a check on S3Z1NB0KC69509M using SeaTools SSD. The program said it passed

The new installation of Windows is from Bootable USB download from Windows that I did on my work laptop, so it is not related to the original drive's installation.
 

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