PC takes hours to boot after Windows 10 upgrade and Windows is very slow. Worst of all, I can't reset the system!

[oootah]

I have an ASUS desktop w/ AMD processor. Factory installed Windows 8 (though I don't remember if it was 8.0 or 8.1).

I upgraded to Windows 10 a few days ago without issue and enjoyed the upgraded OS for an afternoon before restarting my PC in the evening. Every restart/power up since then, the computer is stuck on the ASUS splash screen for at least 30 mins. Eventually, the following text will appear:

Scanning and repairing drive: (\\?\Volume{c32ade09- yada yada yada}): 100% complete

That screen will persist for at least 45 minutes. After that, more black screen for a while, and eventually an extremely slow Windows 10.

If I force a shut down during the boot, I will get a "Preparing automatic repair" message next time I boot, but that sends me to a plain black screen with cursor. Forcing shut down from there restarts the cycle.

I can access the BIOS by spamming Delete, but f9 has no effect.

After hours/days of trying to apply known fixes to W10 sluggishness/boot issues, I've decided to reset the PC to factory settings, but it won't let me.

Here's what I've tried:

From BIOS:
1. Bootable USB with Windows installation media obtained from Microsoft website.
2. DVD with Windows ISO image obtained from the Microsoft website.
Both times it told me the media was invalid.

The f9 troubleshoot menu:
I managed to get into this menu once (from BIOS screen, I believe, but I'm not sure). I chose the "Reset your PC" option. After a long wait, it asked for Windows installation media (which it shouldn't do, because it should use the OEM recovery partition, according the the ASUS support people). I tried using the media described above, and it said both were invalid.

From Windows:
I tried going through settings>recovery, eventually choosing the option to clean the drive and start over option. That gave me the message: "Getting things ready. This won't take long." But it did take long. After waiting for a few hours, I left it alone and went to bed. In the morning, it was apparent the computer had restarted, but I was greeted with a message saying the reset failed.

After some research I've seen that many ASUS laptops have had issues accessing the OEM recovery partition, and ASUS has even released a program that you can download to help reset the PC. Alas, I have a desktop, and the program does not work for my system.

If you have any ideas for allowing me to keep Windows 10 while fixing the sluggishness and long boot, I'll do that. If you have any ideas to help me factory reset the PC, I'll do that. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Cystash]

Well being that the first thing the pc does is just hang at the spash screen for 30 min i would be testing the hard drive, if the hard drive has any corrupted or damaged partitions due to physical failure it will cause the pc to hang when it tries to access that partition. If you can get to another pc and download Hirens Boot Cd and burn it to a dvd, boot to it and test the hard drive. Also possibly a virus clean up wouldnt hurt that can cause sluggishness to but the first thing i would do if you brought it in to my work would be test the hard drive.

 

[oootah]

Thanks Cystash- Hiren's definitely improved things. During the repair process I watched it tick up to about 60% complete. I walked away for a minute and when I returned the computer had restarted. When I tried booting to the CD again to make sure the repair completed, I had the good ol' splash page for a few minutes, and I had no indication that Hiren's was running. Does this indicate that it wasn't working or that it found no more issues with the drive?

I still get the "scanning and repairing drive" message at the boot, but it doesn't stay for nearly as long. The boot is still longer than normal, and Windows takes a while to get started, but the whole process takes about 15-20 minutes now. Windows seems to be working well (probably because all the changes I've made are now taking effect upon a full restart).

I can live with a long boot time as long as the computer operates smoothly otherwise, so I haven't attempted to do a factory reset yet. Given the current state of things, should I be concerned about the weird boot enough to warrant a reset or should I let it ride from here with Windows 10? Or any other ideas for how to fix the remaining issues?

Thanks so much. I really appreciate the help.

 

[Cystash]

No problem, boot into windows and in the search type msconfig, when it opens up click on startup and click open task manager. It will take you to everything that starts up when you turn the pc on. The only thing you need enabled is your anti virus and anything that says like intel or something to do with windows or an operating system. The rest you should disable. Also open cmd as admin and run an sfc /scannow.

 

[Dave8671]

Yes open task manager if you can select selective startup. This will load a driver at a time. If this issue is a driver than it will not load correctly and you can see which one is causing the issue.

See if you pc is on the windows 10 compatibility list of you brand. Not all are going to be even though they run win7 or win8.1.

 

[JBRONCFAN]

Hard to diagnose with no list of your specs.......but I'll try.

I assume you have at least one spinning hard drive??? I believe the controller for one of your hard drives has crapped out. Plug in your spinning hd then power up. Keep doing this until you isolate the problem drive.