Can't Boot (Critical Process Died)

[jimlau]

getting the above error after 3 fresh windows 10 installs, at various stages after the install. all seemed well for hours.

i had no viruses. i tried to reboot in all the offered manners (e.g. safe boot, debug, etc) but could never re-boot.

any idea why this is happened at various times?

thanks.

(i have Intel i7 6600, MSI Z170A Gaming M3 motherboard, W10 Pro)

 

[elbert]

If you have 2 sticks of RAM use only one and test then the other. RAM tends to be the cause or the boot drive. Yoo may need to try another boot drive.

 

[Filippo_P]

getting the above error after 3 fresh windows 10 installs, at various stages after the install. all seemed well for hours.

i had no viruses. i tried to reboot in all the offered manners (e.g. safe boot, debug, etc) but could never re-boot.

any idea why this is happened at various times?

thanks.

(i have Intel i7 6600, MSI Z170A Gaming M3 motherboard, W10 Pro)

If I had to guess, I'd say it's a problem with the storage device or the RAM.
Try to boot the computer form an external device and run tools to check whether the RAM is working correctly and whether there are errors on the HDD/SSD.

If it's the RAM, replace the damaged bank of RAM with a new one (or, if you have more than one, temporarily remove the damaged one to get up and running).
If it's an HDD with faulty sectors, I successfully used (despite it being controversial) HDDRegenerator. It won't last long if it works, but at least you'll get your system running for a while. The HDD will have to be replaced of course, as those issues just get worse and worse over time.
If you have an SSD it's a different story and I'm more inclined to blame the controller on the motherboard.

 

[jimlau]

It is indeed an SSD. Not sure what a controller is. What can I do to test if that is the issue? Does that involve motherboard drivers?

 

[jimlau]

1 thing - i don't have the driver cd, so i downloaded ones from the support page, but may not have had them all installed, if that is relevant.

thanks.

 

[Filippo_P]

Checking whether the problem is the SSD or the disk controller is a tricky business.

You can try and check with some software whether all SSD sectors are ok. You should however proceed by removing the SSD, installing it on a working computer and performing the check from that computer, as you need to make sure that any problem on your current computer does not interfere.

Once you are satisfied that the SSD is working properly, you put it back on your computer, re-run the same test and see what happens.
Note, however, that you first must be sure that the RAM is working correctly as a defective RAM slot/bank could interfere and lead to a wrong diagnosys.

If the test result shows that now there are problems with the SSD, it's probably the controller. One last thing you should do to be absolutely certain would be to remove all connected hardware (like video-cards, ethernet cards and so on) but one RAM slot and the SSD (and of course monitor and keyboard) and repeat the test. If the test yields the same results you will have narrowed down the problem to either the motherboard or the processor, otherwise to one of the additional hardware pieces.
At this point you proceed again by replacing/connecting one component (if you have a spare, of course) and repeat the test. This will tell which component is the defective one.

As for drivers: yes, it could be because of drivers. What you should do in this case would be to wipe the disk clean and do a new clean install. If by doing so everything works, install the drivers one by one and reboot until the problem starts happening.