Wont boot up, wont repair, cant reset all because I improperly turned off

[newgranny]

chkdsk C: /R just finished and it says at the end:

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

9625822527 KB total disk space.
1163263120 KB in 361183 files.
       234288 KB in 139326 indexes.
                0 KB in bad sectors.
       922787 KB in use by the system.
         65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  798162332 KB available on disk.

           4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
  240645631 total allocation units on disk.
  199540583 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 57.61 minutes (3457094 ms).
Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 6.

x:/windows/system32> (the back slash does not work on this notebook I am on)

I am going to reboot and see what happens.  If it will not boot into Windows 10, I will follow the bootrec suggestions and will post the results here

[newgranny]

x:/windows/system32>bootrec /rebuildbcd
Scanning all disks for Windows installations.

Please wait, since this may take a while...

Successfully scanned Windows installations.
Total identified Windows installations: 0
The operation completed successfully.

*************************

x:/windows/system32>bootrec /fixmbr
The operation complete siccessfully.

*************************

x:/windows/system32>bootrec /fixboot
Access is denied.

*************************

Holy poo!  Why is my access denied in fixboot, I put my BitLocker number in, in order to access the command prompt box?!

 

So, before I try that sfc /scannow option is there something I should/can do to be able to access fixboot, first?

[BC_Programmer]

That might be expected on newer systems, the /fixboot switch will rewrite the boot sector, but boot sectors were replaced with some fancy gubbins a few years ago and newer machines don't use them, which I would surmise (fancy way of saying 'completely wild guess' lol)  that could be why.

You might try rebooting at this stage if you had not already.

I'd suggest trying sfc /scannow, if the system allows you.

I found  this which has some further instructions on rebuilding the BCD "from scratch", this might be needed if the reason you keep getting tossed to the recovery environment is because the existing install information for Windows got corrupted. (Apparently, /rebuildbcd  only adds new windows installs not already present, which is why it said 0)

[newgranny]

Okay, so, you are probably going to be mad at me 

Before I read your message, I was checking out some YouTube videos on the whole access denied thing with fixboot and I decided to give it a try after watching three vids that said practically the same thing.

This is what I did: (I am going to use (BS) where a backslash is because mine does not work on this notebook)

x:(BS)windows(BS)system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MININT-0718IQQ

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ###          Status          Size          Free          Dyn          Gpt
-----------          ------------    -----         ---------     -----         ------
Disk 0               Online           931 GB     10 MB                         *

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list vol

Volume ###    Ltr     Label               Fs          Type            Size            Status          Info
--------------    -----   ---------------   --------   -------------  ----------     -------------  -------
Volume 0          C       OS                  NTFS      Partition        917 GB      Healthy                 
Volume 1          D       WINRETOOLS   NTFS      Partition        990 MB      Healthy               
Volume 2          E       Image              NTFS      Partition         10 GB      Healthy               
Volume 3          F       DELLSUPPORT  NTFS      Partition       1096 MB     Healthy                 
Volume 4                   ESP                 FAT32     Partition        650 MB      Healthy        Hidden

DISKPART> select vol 0

Volume 0 is the selected volume.

DISKPART>  assign letter=V:

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> exit

Leaving Diskpart...

x:(BS)windows(BS)system32>V:

V:(BS)>md (BS)efi(BS)microsoft(BS)boot

V:(BS)efi(BS)microsoft(BS)boot>bootrec /fixboot
Access is denied.

So, I followed all the steps carefully and I still get access denied.   

How do I undo the steps I did above??

The cursor is now at:

V:(BS)efi(BS)microsoft(BS)boot>V:

[newgranny]

I am going to be a good little girl (old lady, actually) and not do anything else until you tell me to.

 

[BC_Programmer]

There were instructions similar to those you followed that I was going to post. I opted not to as I felt it was too dangerous. I guess that doesn't matter now!

Whatever instructions you were reviewing left out some important information. What the tutorials are trying to guide you through is repairing the EFI partition on the hard disk. This is a hidden partition which contains the boot information.

At this point I need to mention I have never had to do this myself.

However either you missed some instructions or, more likely, given my experience with 'youtube tutorials', they just didn't bother to mention it. The odd part of those instructions is that they have you create the folders. But they should already exist on the EFI drive, so it's a bit odd.

The purpose of the "list vol" command step is to determine which volume to select. This corresponds to my step 4 below. You selected disk 0, you wanted to select disk 4. You basically just created some folders on C: drive (since you mounted the drive that was already mounted as C:, disk 0, to V: drive as well so they were the same drive). They are just folders and shouldn't cause any issues thankfully.

These are the instructions I came up with but didn't post because I felt the process was too dangerous in terms of the risk of data loss. Though given you've followed some similar instructions already I suppose I can't make things worse. Also, perhaps I'm overthinking the risk- I only format USB Drives or SD Cards on "throwaway" machines without critical data and still triple check the drive letter repeatedly every time, so perhaps I'm overly concerned.


Within that same prompt:

1.

Code: [Select]

diskpart
This starts the diskpart tool.

2. select the boot disk. It will be disk 0:

Code: [Select]

select disk 0
3. now we want to see the volumes on the drive.

Code: [Select]

list vol

4. There should be a rather small FAT32 partition listed. You will want to select the volume number it provides:

Code: [Select]

sel vol <number>

5. where <number> is the number of the volume in question, such as sel vol 1 or sel vol 5 or whatever.


6. Now we want a drive letter to work with that volume:

Code: [Select]

assign letter=Q:

7. This will make the EFI partition drive Q:

8. Now we exit the disk part tool:

Code: [Select]

exit

9. we switch over to the EFI drive now:

Code: [Select]

cd /d Q:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot

And *now* you should be able to do fixboot:

Code: [Select]

bootrec /FixBoot


[newgranny]

So, just to be clear ... you want me to put these commands in where the cursor is now? V:(BS)efi(BS)microsoft(BS)boot>V:

Or, do you want me to erase the V: and type C: instead

Or, do you want me to go back to the original: x:(BS)windows(BS)system32(BS) ??

If you want me to start anywhere other than where the cursor is now, please tell me the commands I need to put in to get there.

Thanks!

[BC_Programmer]

restart and re-enter the recovery environment again.

[newgranny]

I turned my computer off, waited 10 seconds, turned it back on again (there is no restart option).

Navigated through the blue screens and opened command prompt (black box). I typed DISKPART at the cursor and hit enter.

X:(BS)windows(BS)system32>diskpart

And now the prompt looks like this:

DISKPART>

There is nothing to select a number here ... did I miss a step to get a list to display??

[BC_Programmer]

It is not necessary to list the disks in order to tell the software to select one to work with. We already know we will be selecting Disk 0 after all so there's no need to look at them, which is why my step 2 goes right into selecting the disk.

[newgranny]

Very last command line is:

Q:(BS)EFI(BS)Microsoft(BS)Boot>bootrec /fixboot
Access is denied.

 

Now the cursor is at a new line:

Q:(BS)EFI(BS)Microsoft(BS)Boot>

[BC_Programmer]

I don't know what else to do that I can actually guide a person through.

[newgranny]

I guess I am going to have to bite the bullet and take it in somewhere.

Thank you SO much for all your efforts, I appreciate it very much!