0x000021a restart loop

[James27]

Hey guys. So like many others I've had this problem since Nvidia's 364.47 driver update. It froze and restarted halfway through installation, and from then on would always Blue Screen and restart just before it loads Windows. Now as for what I've tried:

I tried getting Safe Mode to roll back the drivers, but it Blue Screens when I do that as well. I've tried loading from a restore point but apparently none were created. I then (perhaps pretty drastically) tried "reset this PC". I chose the "keep my files" option, but part way through it said there was an error and stopped. I then tried "remove everything" and same thing. Now this is where things get pretty depressing! After I did this, it doesn't even get to the Blue Screen anymore, and Automatic Repair doesn't load. The only thing I can do is open the BIOS (it's ASUS btw).

So that's where I am at the moment. Now I do still have my old Windows 7 installation disk lying around, so I could try reinstalling it, but at this point I'm worried about messing it up further! So I wanted to get you guys' opinion about, as well as any other suggestions on what I could do.

Thanks!

 

[Laptop_Nerd]

Hi,

I would suggest installing Windows 7 in your PC that should work just fine unlike Windows 10 which has too many bugs or glitches on it still unfortunately.

Here's a video guide as well on how to install Windows 7.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mME9VLT7-xw

 

[James27]

Thanks, but what I really need to know is if it's safe to install Windows 7 in it's current state. Given the choice, though, I would stick with Windows 10.

 

[James27]

Giving this a bump

 

[Colif]

so if you boot off win 10 iso, how far do you get into the install?

What specs in pc btw?

 

[James27]

I don't have a Windows 10 ISO. I only have a Windows 7 install disk. My specs are:

CPU: Core i7 3770
GPU: GTX 970
Motherboard: PH877-V LE
Memory: 2x 4GB DDR3
Storage: 2 HDD (1TB, 500GB)

 

[Colif]

how to get windows 10 ISO: https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/software-download/windows10

Make a copy and boot off it, leave win 7 out of equation.

 

[James27]

I might do that. A few questions though. Firstly, since I can't access my PC, can I still do it? Secondly, will reinstalling using this method wipe my hard drive?

 

[Colif]

1. access pc? you mean, get into windows? If you can use another computer to burn a copy of win 10 ISO you can boot off it, and from your description, you won't have much of a working win 10 now. You tried remove everything, it failed... i can imagine its a mess now.

2. I think it will, since you have to do a custom install. Reason being Win 10 uses a different partition style to Win 7, it lets you have partitions over 2 tb in size, But to achieve that you need to wipe the drive in the windows 10 install process, so it can recreate the partitions again. Win won't let you install it on MBR unless its an update and that is too much work just to avoid it (installing 7 then 10)

the process is explained here: http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2784691/ditch-problematic-win10-upgrade-replace-clean-install.html