[SOLVED] Windows Update to 1909 is Failing

[RBB24]

While I've been trying solutions left and right, I don't rightly know what the cause is. For reference, I'm running Windows 10 v1809 and have been trying to update to 1909 for a few months now. Haven't been concerned before, but since it's started saying that my version of 1809 will be unsupported soon, I'm trying to figure this out so my system isn't vulnerable. I've had issues with updates in the past (seems Windows is notorious for faulty updates) but I've usually been able to resolve them pretty quickly. This time, however, I'm having a significant amount of trouble. I've tried removing the previous updates, I've tried doing a refresh, I've tried doing a re-install, I've tried doing an uninstall to a clean install, and nothing seems to work. I've even dabbled slightly in the command prompt, though I tend to avoid it for the most part as I don't know what I'm doing with it. It is a PC I built, and while I doubt that has anything to do with it as I've had the PC working, with regular updates, just fine since Nov. 2018 I suppose at this point anything is possible so I'm not ruling anything out.

If it helps, here are the specs:

Lexar USB (32 GB I believe): Using this as my 1909 ISO file should I need it, tried doing the setup from there but it still didn't work.

WD EasyStore 1TB External Hard Drive: Backup drive so I'm prepared if I need to reset the whole system.

Samsung SSD 860 QVO 2TB: Where my OS is and most of my files

SanDisk SSD Plus 1TB: Up until a couple of days ago, had Windows also installed on this drive, but it was buggy and kept giving me a black screen, so afterward I only used the drive to install games on, but I still had the dual boot option just never used it.

Dell S2716DG

Corsair Void Pro

MSI Ventus RTX 2080

i7 8086K on a Gigabyte AORUS z370 Gaming Wifi Motherboard

Logitech G400s mouse

Corsair K68 RGB Keyboard

Corsair H100i Pro RGB AIO

Seasonic 700W Gold & Modular (don't remember the exact name) with Cablemod cables (now I don't think it'd be either of these, but I'm including them because I can't really know for sure with all of these issues coming up.)

I do have an antivirus installed, Webroot, which I've tried turning the security measures off as per some website recommendations (back on now) to see if that would help the update go through, also simultaneously turning off the Windows protection measures to see if it would help. Nope.



So It's safe to say I'm at a loss in regards to fixing this. While I'd prefer being able to keep all of my apps and files, it's not that big of a deal if I have to do a clean wipe. Each time that I've tried to do anything always comes up with a failure. I've tried to do an update but it came up with a failure; I tried doing a system update through Microsoft's website, failure; I tried restoring to a previous point, failure; I tried refreshing the OS, failure; I've tried doing a full, clean install, failure.



Some factors that might help - when I first built the PC, I decided to risk it for about half a year by not getting a UPS, instead opting for a power strip loosely connected to the wall, all on the ground next to my feet. I get fairly restless when pwning noobs in games, and often times just move my legs and feet around out of habit. I happened to kick the power strip's cord off the wall-socket a few times. Most of the times the PC seemed fairly okay, but the last time had me realize that the OS was acting funky on that 1TB drive. Tried what I could to fix that one, but the only way I seemed to be able to resolve it was just by buying a new SSD and installing the OS on that as a bootable drive. I was afraid with the failing of the PC that I might lose the data on the 1TB, so I decided to get wise and do something my young self had never done before: buy and use an external hard drive for backups. Interestingly though, after starting up the PC with the new, fresh OS installed on the new SSD, I was still able to use the old SSD for storage. So, now, essentially I have a 3TB internal storage set-up (not in a raid array or anything fancy, forgot how to do it. Just two drives where I can choose which one gets stuff installed on lol) and a dual boot system, although granted the 1 TB drive wouldn't really be able to operate as my OS drive because it still had it's bugs on it.

Another thing, possibly related to the power-kicking issue, though possibly also related to the overclock itself, is that I did overclock my 8086k a few months back, but noticed on occasion, though not recently and I think after the failed updates, that if I left my computer in hibernation and went to turn it back on it would spin up for a few seconds and stop, requiring me to manually power down the system and reboot it (usually by flipping the switch on the PC's power supply) so there's that, too.



I don't know how to attach screenshots with possibly pertinent information (gibberish to me), so if you could inform me of how to do so, that'd be greatly appreciated.

 

[Colif]

It helps to remove an overclock if you trying to install windows. It can get in the way.

what is problem you get if you try to clean install? As it would be probably the simplest way to get to 1909. Especially since you have backups.

(wonder when 20H1 is due out, should be now)

 

[RBB24]

Hello, thanks for your reply. I did remove the overclock on the CPU, tried everything again, and still nothing worked. As far as the information I get on the clean install, it just says something along the lines of "Failed to update, nothing has changed." Haven't tried it again in a while, so I can't remember the exact message, but that's basically the gist of it. An interesting thing to note is that 1809 has no problem updating to the latest version (the April 2020 update of 1809) but any attempt to update to 1909 results in basically nothing. Sometimes the Update History says that it failed to update but doesn't pop up an error code, other times it says that it is waiting for restart despite the fact that I'd already restarted it moments earlier.

This is the most recent information that I got from command prompt, a list of updates, which shows that I've had 0 issue updating 1809.

C:\Windows\system32>wmic qfe list brief /format:table
Description FixComments HotFixID InstallDate InstalledBy InstalledOn Name ServicePackInEffect Status
Update KB4537480 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 4/23/2020
Update KB4465065 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 4/20/2020
Update KB4480056 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 4/19/2020
Update KB4486153 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 4/20/2020
Security Update KB4512577 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 9/12/2019
Security Update KB4521862 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 10/9/2019
Security Update KB4523204 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 11/12/2019
Security Update KB4537759 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM 2/14/2020
Update KB4550969 (my PC's info) 4/23/2020

 

[Colif]

As far as the information I get on the clean install, it just says something along the lines of "Failed to update, nothing has changed."

Clean installs don't update anything, they replace it all. That sounds like you ran the installer from inside win 10 and it just tried to update PC to version of ISO on the USB.
To clean install you boot from the USB itself, and wipe the ssd so make sure to copy everything off it you want to save

remove the power cable from the 2nd ssd so win 10 doesn't use the boot sector on the current ssd. It will mean dual boot won't work but also means the boot partition will be on new ssd and not old one.
boot from installer
follow this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-do-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10.3170366/

 

[RBB24]

I'll go ahead and give this a try, but before I do I want to double-check something. I did delete the windows volume off the secondary drive a few days ago so I wouldn't have to worry about the Dual boot Shenanigans anymore. However, while booting into BIOS to start the clean install, I did notice that the boot drive is still set to the secondary drive. It doesn't even allow me to set the primary drive as the boot drive, even after deleting the volume. To my understanding deleting a volume would delete everything on the drive, so what gives? Could this be the problem? Also, to ensure that the computer always will boot from the primary hard drive, should I leave the secondary still plugged in? The way I imagine is that it'll delete all the Windows software on both drives (including the boot drive?), so I'd like to know the best way to go about this.

 

[Stash_74]

I had a similar issue. Tried for months to update to the newest build. Then, out of the blue, it worked. I’m thinking it has something to do with the hardware configuration. Sorry it’s not helpful, but maybe Microsoft will get it straightened out for you soon.

 

[RBB24]

Well I'm hoping that if none of these options work out, it'll work itself out by just one day deciding "Hey, you're good now, update's done!" but I feel that would be more putting a band-aid on the issue rather than solving it, because chances are if it happened once it'll happen again.

 

[Colif]

I'll go ahead and give this a try, but before I do I want to double-check something. I did delete the windows volume off the secondary drive a few days ago so I wouldn't have to worry about the Dual boot Shenanigans anymore.

However, while booting into BIOS to start the clean install, I did notice that the boot drive is still set to the secondary drive.

that is likely because the boot partition is still on the drive. When you installed last time, the old drive was in PC? what windows did was added itself to the boot partition on that drive, its trying to be helpful. So its possible if you try tto boot off the new drive without old one in, it wouldn't work.

It doesn't even allow me to set the primary drive as the boot drive, even after deleting the volume. To my understanding deleting a volume would delete everything on the drive, so what gives? Could this be the problem? Also, to ensure that the computer always will boot from the primary hard drive, should I leave the secondary still plugged in? The way I imagine is that it'll delete all the Windows software on both drives (including the boot drive?), so I'd like to know the best way to go about this.

How about removing the other drive while you install? then it won't show in boot order?

Once pc works from the one drive, we can work out how to resolve the other drive.