[SOLVED] Recovery Drive goes to BSOD on a perfectly running Windows 11 PC ?

[American2021]

I have a Windows 11 PC that's running perfectly with bitlocker turned on. I created a recovery drive on same computer using a 64GB USB disc and afterwards, rebooted using the new recovery drive and was told the operating system could not be loaded because a critical system file is missing or contains errors.

File: \windows\system32\drivers\refs.sys
Error Code: 0xc0000221

The refs.sys is on the PC's hard drive in the correct location. So, I ran:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
then
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
then
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

And everything was great. Then I ran SFC/ SCANNOW and it finished with no problems. Finally, I ran CHKDSK /F and everything is fine.

Then I shutdown the computer and restarted to the desktop. I created a new recovery drive on the same computer using a new 64GB USB disc and rebooted using the new recovery drive and the same problem.

Notes: reagent is enabled like it should be.

Does anyone have a clue what's going on here? Do recovery drives created in Windows 11 NOT work if bitlocker is turned on? Does anyone know how to resolve this?

 

[Ralston18]

"Do recovery drives created in Windows 11 NOT work if bitlocker is turned on?"

As I understand the described circumstances/description I would hope not.

If all that was needed to circumvent bitlocker was a "recovery drive" then that would be a serious security flaw.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[USAFRet]

"Do recovery drives created in Windows 11 NOT work if bitlocker is turned on?"

As I understand the described circumstances/description I would hope not.

If all that was needed to circumvent bitlocker was a "recovery drive" then that would be a serious security flaw.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

My Macrium Reflect incremental or full drive Images specifically inform me that it is backing up nonEncrypted.
Even though BitLocker is applied to the drive in question.
Ergo, I could recover that to whatever drive in this system, in a totally unencrypted state.

 

[American2021]

This is getting interesting. Rebooting through Settings, System, Recovery, Advanced Startup gives the same error message on reboot. It appears the problem is NOT with the USB recovery drive I created in Windows 11, nor the Windows 11 primary partition (C drive) with the operating system and all the applications.

Rather, the Windows Recovery Environment (WRE) partition that was created when I installed a clean install of 24H2 Windows 11 using the Media Creation Tool (which downloaded an ISO that I burned to USB drive with RUFUS for install) must be corrupt.

So, I will need to recreate the 24H2 Windows 11 WRE partition on the primary hard drive. I bet if I use mediacreationtool.exe to perform an in-place reinstall (being careful NOT to do a clean install) and keep apps and files from the correct version of Windows 11 for my installation (which is 24H2 on this PC) that it will recreate the windows recovery partition on this PC.

I should never have used RUFUS but should have used the mediacreationtool.exe to start with to install Windows 11. So, I'm going to try it and run the Win 11 setup.exe from within Win 11 logged in with admin rights for this PC. This should work. I will post back if it worked.

 

[USAFRet]

So, I will need to recreate the 24H2 Windows 11 WRE partition on the primary hard drive. I bet if I use mediacreationtool.exe to perform an in-place reinstall (being careful NOT to do a clean install) from the correct version of Windows 11 for my installation (which is 24H2 on this PC) that it will recreate the windows recovery partition on this PC.

Whatever non-OS data that lives on this drive...pleasepleaseplease ensure that it is backed up elsewhere and offline during this process.

 

[American2021]

Whatever non-OS data that lives on this drive...pleasepleaseplease ensure that it is backed up elsewhere and offline during this process.

Whatever non-OS data that lives on this drive...pleasepleaseplease ensure that it is backed up elsewhere and offline during this process.

Yes, it never gets old hearing this. All data and apps are backed up on two different drives. I'm being careful.

 

[American2021]

Hmm... I got the following error message after the Windows repair (boot from the USB drive) and then running Windows setup.exe off the USB drive from within Win11 both failed:

0x8007000D - 0x2000C
The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during APPLY_IMAGE operation

The fun never stops.

 

[American2021]

OK, so there is the manufacturer partition (healthy); the EFI system partition (healthy); and the C drive Win 11 partition that is healthy. BUT, there's no room on the disk!

So, there's no current recovery partition and no room for one. That would be the reason for the last error message. Now to use mediacreationtool.exe from the latest Windows 11 version to create a new Windows 11 installation drive for this PC.

Then to shrink the C drive Win 11 partition which has plenty of empty space on it so there's unallocated space of about 50GB to a 100GB at the end of the drive. That should allow running setup.exe from the new Win 11 USB drive from Windows 11 (while keeping all files and apps option checked) to finally create the Windows 11 system recovery partition. Let's try it. Here we go.

 

[American2021]

We have a winner! So, all I had to do was:
1. Make sure there was enough unallocated space at the end of the hard drive.
2. Use the mediacreationtool.exe for the latest version of Win11 to create a Win11 installation USB drive and click setup.exe in the Win11 installation USB drive choosing to KEEP my apps and files.

Now I can boot into the windows recovery environment from a Win11 USB recovery drive created on the PC or through Windows Settings, System, Recovery, Advanced Startup, Restart.

Super easy once you know. Happy Easter everyone. This case is closed.

 

[Ralston18]

Thread marked as Solved.