Question Why does this keep happening

[Novel8]

I have a dual OS on separate hard drives. Win 10 suddenly won't start. This has happened once before a few months ago with an error. I forgot what the error was, but somehow i got rid of it and Win 10 worked fine until last night when i tried to boot it. This time no error just constant icon swirling 'eternally'. So i installed my Media tool usb, disconnected win 7 so it won't accidentally get erased. I chose repair and i get the message that it cannot be repaired after doing its diagnostic routine...then I tried to reset it which was the other option and that didn't work. One other solution was to reinstall it, but hesitated, thinking i would have to go through all those upgrades again, which in my opinion maybe the cause of these repeated snags of booting Win 10 or this is microsofts way to get you disgusted and Buy their ' free' win 10.

 

[Colif]

what upgrades? If you download the Windows 10 media creation tool and use it to make a win 10 installer on USB, you will have the latest version. Would just need to get 5 updates max after, to be up to date. the 5 don't take long really. Cumulative update takes a while to install as its all the previous updates combined

 

[Novel8]

Again, my Win 10 won't start....why does this keep happening? I have dual OS, lucky for me. A few months ago it won't start but then i got an error and corrected it and got it to start again. I forgot what the error was. Now, it stopped again but this time with no error. I used the Media tool and chose repair and it goes through its usual diagnostic mode and eventually says it cannot be repaired. I tried reset and the same situation...no help at all. I made sure that i disconnected my win 7, which i am using now writing this post, and both OS are on separate hd's. In fact Win 10 was installed on a less than one year old SSD. I did see the option to reinsall, but hesitated. If it does reinstall, at what stage would i get? Would i have to go through the constant updates again, which in my opinion are the cause of this loop of Win 10 getting a 'stroke' now and then or maybe Microsoft set it up this way so you can buy their 'free' win 10 system.

 

[Darkbreeze]

IF you do a CLEAN install, not a reset, refresh or restore, by using the media creation tool to create a new installation flash drive using the latest available installer image there should be VERY FEW updates necessary afterwards.

Go here and under the "Create Windows 10 installation media" click on Download now. Follow the directions to create installation media for your PC. Then shut down, disconnect your Windows 7 drive, connect ONLY the drive you plan to install Windows 10 on, all other drives except for your USB flash drive should be disconnected, and boot to the installation flash drive and follow the directions. When you get to the option, choose "Custom". Delete ALL existing partitions that show in the list and then click on the unpartitioned, unformatted space and click next. Windows will create all necessary partitions and perform and required formatting.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

What are your full hardware specifications? Because one problem you might be experiencing is the fact that Windows 7 does not support FULL UEFI configurations for the most part while Windows 10 WANTS to see a full UEFI configuration, but CAN run in legacy modes if necessary by enabling CSM in the BIOS.

 

[ötzi]

Do you have more than the two harddisks you mentioned in your system?
If so, did you unplug all harddisks except the one you were installing Windows on on both installs?

Also, a full spec list of your system would be welcome

 

[Novel8]

IF you do a CLEAN install, not a reset, refresh or restore, by using the media creation tool to create a new installation flash drive using the latest available installer image there should be VERY FEW updates necessary afterwards.

Go here and under the "Create Windows 10 installation media" click on Download now. Follow the directions to create installation media for your PC. Then shut down, disconnect your Windows 7 drive, connect ONLY the drive you plan to install Windows 10 on, all other drives except for your USB flash drive should be disconnected, and boot to the installation flash drive and follow the directions. When you get to the option, choose "Custom". Delete ALL existing partitions that show in the list and then click on the unpartitioned, unformatted space and click next. Windows will create all necessary partitions and perform and required formatting.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

What are your full hardware specifications? Because one problem you might be experiencing is the fact that Windows 7 does not support FULL UEFI configurations for the most part while Windows 10 WANTS to see a full UEFI configuration, but CAN run in legacy modes if necessary by enabling CSM in the BIOS.

Are you saying that my Media tool usb is outdated, cause that is what i have been using.

Do you have more than the two harddisks you mentioned in your system?
If so, did you unplug all harddisks except the one you were installing Windows on on both installs?

Also, a full spec list of your system would be welcome

Yes, I mentioned that in my OP...dual OS on separate hd's. I have beem using the Media tool usb program all the time i have this occuring...and it worked just fine, until this latest try for whatever reason. Here is my system based on Win 7:
Win 7 Home Premium
x64-based PC
Bios version date American Megatrends 3/10/2016

8.00 GB

 

[Darkbreeze]

Yeah, that's not your specs. We need to know the following, and we need exact model numbers whenever possible. There are plenty of ways to determine what hardware is installed including utilities like Speccy, CPU-Z, the built in Windows system information applet (MSinfo32) and so on.

CPU
Motherboard
Memory (RAM)
Graphics card
Power supply (Exact model)
Storage devices (All of them)
Case
Case fans
CPU cooler
Any additional connected peripherals that might be relevant

Or, if this was a prebuilt system, the exact model and submodel or express service tag of that prebuilt system.

 

[Novel8]

IF you do a CLEAN install, not a reset, refresh or restore, by using the media creation tool to create a new installation flash drive using the latest available installer image there should be VERY FEW updates necessary afterwards.

Go here and under the "Create Windows 10 installation media" click on Download now. Follow the directions to create installation media for your PC. Then shut down, disconnect your Windows 7 drive, connect ONLY the drive you plan to install Windows 10 on, all other drives except for your USB flash drive should be disconnected, and boot to the installation flash drive and follow the directions. When you get to the option, choose "Custom". Delete ALL existing partitions that show in the list and then click on the unpartitioned, unformatted space and click next. Windows will create all necessary partitions and perform and required formatting.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

What are your full hardware specifications? Because one problem you might be experiencing is the fact that Windows 7 does not support FULL UEFI configurations for the most part while Windows 10 WANTS to see a full UEFI configuration, but CAN run in legacy modes if necessary by enabling CSM in the BIOS.

Well it worked before with Full uefi ...I built this desktop back in 2017 is there a automatic program here that automatically downloads system info? I don't have any of those utilities mentioned in another post.

 

[Darkbreeze]

https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

 

[Novel8]

Well it worked before with Full uefi ...I built this desktop back in 2017 is there a automatic program here that automatically downloads system info? I don't have any of those utilities mentioned in another post.

Well it worked before with Full uefi ...I built this desktop back in 2017 is there a automatic program here that automatically downloads system info? I don't have any of those utilities mentioned in another post.

Thanks i made a snapshot of it...but its confusing on how i can submit here. All i see is send by email or sharing with a friend..nothing how to include it in a Forum.

 

[Darkbreeze]

How to PROPERLY post images on the Tom's hardware forum​

 

[Novel8]

How to PROPERLY post images on the Tom's hardware forum​

I have to hold off for now, thanks....i have to leave the pc till tomorrow.

 

[ötzi]

Yes, I mentioned that in my OP...dual OS on separate hd's.

My question was if you have more than two harddisks in your system?

 

[Novel8]

My question was if you have more than two harddisks in your system?

Sorry...no, i do not have more than 2 hd's.

 

[BFG-9000]

I've run into this problem before, where XP or Win 7 has done something to the Win 10 disk that makes Win 10's BCD based boot manager (and the Startup Repair tool) somehow think it's installed on drive D or something so goes looking for system files there on a missing volume. The clue for this would be if your installation media finds a previous Windows installation on Drive D when there is only one disk currently installed.

To reset the drive to C: run Repair your computer-->Troubleshoot-->Advanced Options-->Command Prompt-->then bootrec /FixMbr for Legacy BIOS or bootrec /FixBoot for your UEFI with GPT disk
If that doesn't work another common suggestion to try is bootrec /RebuildBcd before you settle on reinstalling

The other multiboot problem (which is more common with XP) is each version of Windows uses a slightly different version of NTFS so the earlier versions may see the later ones as corrupt and set the dirty bit on that volume. The problem comes when you reboot the earlier OS its Autochk then calls up chkdsk to do an automatic checkdisk with /f switch and if you are not watching to "press any key to skip disk checking" it will helpfully corrupt hundreds of files on your Win 10 disk to prevent Windows 10 from ever booting so you never have to look at it again.

To prevent chkdsk from running on the Win 10 disk, open a command prompt within Windows 7 and chkntfs /x e: f: to for example tell autochk to always ignore the dirty bit on drives E and F if that's what the boot and system partitions for Win 10 show up as in Win 7. That's equivalent to setting HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager key "BootExecute" to "autocheck autochk /k:EF*" Note that this doesn't actually prevent the dirty bit from being set in the first place, so when you next boot into 10, its own chkdsk will run which is annoying but OK--as that won't destroy the drive.

It was a lot easier to disable automatic disk checking on boot when a dirty bit was set in Win 9x because that had a simple tick box to do this. I also have to complain about the stupidity of Microsoft allowing fsutil to set a dirty bit but not to clear it, and chkdsk doesn't always clear it either.

 

[Novel8]

I've run into this problem before, where XP or Win 7 has done something to the Win 10 disk that makes Win 10's BCD based boot manager (and the Startup Repair tool) somehow think it's installed on drive D or something so goes looking for system files there on a missing volume. The clue for this would be if your installation media finds a previous Windows installation on Drive D when there is only one disk currently installed.

To reset the drive to C: run Repair your computer-->Troubleshoot-->Advanced Options-->Command Prompt-->then bootrec /FixMbr for Legacy BIOS or bootrec /FixBoot for your UEFI with GPT disk
If that doesn't work another common suggestion to try is bootrec /RebuildBcd before you settle on reinstalling

The other multiboot problem (which is more common with XP) is each version of Windows uses a slightly different version of NTFS so the earlier versions may see the later ones as corrupt and set the dirty bit on that volume. The problem comes when you reboot the earlier OS its Autochk then calls up chkdsk to do an automatic checkdisk with /f switch and if you are not watching to "press any key to skip disk checking" it will helpfully corrupt hundreds of files on your Win 10 disk to prevent Windows 10 from ever booting so you never have to look at it again.

To prevent chkdsk from running on the Win 10 disk, open a command prompt within Windows 7 and chkntfs /x e: f: to for example tell autochk to always ignore the dirty bit on drives E and F if that's what the boot and system partitions for Win 10 show up as in Win 7. That's equivalent to setting HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager key "BootExecute" to "autocheck autochk /k:EF*" Note that this doesn't actually prevent the dirty bit from being set in the first place, so when you next boot into 10, its own chkdsk will run which is annoying but OK--as that won't destroy the drive.

It was a lot easier to disable automatic disk checking on boot when a dirty bit was set in Win 9x because that had a simple tick box to do this. I also have to complain about the stupidity of Microsoft allowing fsutil to set a dirty bit but not to clear it, and chkdsk doesn't always clear it either.

Diskpart did not work...for whatever reason...i suspect that the drive i want to install has to be presetuped, in order for it to work...maybe assign a drive letter ? Format? after choosing 'new volume"????? BTW, this constant removing win 7 in order to install win 10 keeps screwing up my time and date.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you still want help, it would be prudent to answer the question I originally asked which was in regard to your full hardware specifications. And, I posted how to post images here so the lack of information is where we are in a holding pattern at.

The repeated loss of time and date speaks to a dead CMOS battery, but it's hard to say how probable that is since we have NO clue what hardware we are dealing with or how old anything is.