[SOLVED] WinPE missing directories

[onespeedbiker]

So, I recently tried a clean boot and ended up with windows not being bootable. I figured I'd use an install USB to boot up the Recovery Environment, go to the Command prompt, and run msconfig to undo whatever I had done. However, when I searched for c:\Windows directory it was not present (also check d: directory with the same result). While there were some Windows programs in X:\sources I still could not locate the Windows directory. I ended up restoring Windows with a clean install and File History, I'm still curious if this is normal and I was misinformed, or I did something wrong.

 

[Colif]

Clearly you cleaned too much out of services at startup. I always warn people to be careful and not disable any MS services -
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

X is a ram drive created when you run off USB
You should have been able to go into diskpart and do a list disk from there?

You could have typed Notepad and hit enter to open notepad,
then went to File/open to get file explorer. IT would have shown you drive letters etc.

I am not in a rush to repeat your steps to check my advice

 

[onespeedbiker]

I pressed hide all Windows services; at least thought I had I was having an issue with Updates anyway, so the clean install may have been inevitable. Still, is there any way to to Run msconfig from a Install media boot, command prompt?

 

[Colif]

it could have been that you just typed Msconfig which won't work - that using just the ‘msconfig’ command gets you nowhere. If you just enter this, Windows won’t find anything, and you’ll get the “‘msconfig‘ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file” error message.

you need to type Start msconfig which tbh I didn't know either

https://windowsreport.com/msconfig-windows-8/#2

and I don't actually know if you can access it from USB as you need to be admin in Win 10 and you can't get admin access from USB.

wonder if you be safer creating a system restore point before hand and then run clean boot. As then if you mess up you can access it from USB.