Windows 10...... I HATE YOU!

[MIKE JG]

So against my wishes MS managed to trick me the other night into installing Windows 10 onto my laptop. When the prompt came up for the umpteenth million time saying I should install Windows 10, I did what I've always done up until now, I selected the button other than the one that said "Install Now". It was late, I was tired and had been flying all day and was 3 time zones away from where I started and I was just trying to finish one last thing on the computer for the night so I could go to bed.

I think what happened is that MS is getting sneaky (bastards!) and that other button that used to say "Cancel" or "No Thanks" instead now says "Install Later" with a small bit of text that allows you to control when the "later" portion is. About 5 minutes after I thought I had declined to install Win 10, the circle starts spinning right in the middle of the spreadsheet I'm working on and the message comes up saying "Congratulations you are upgrading to Windows 10"..............

Pretty sure the people in the next room over could hear me screaming and cussing. The problem was that at this particular hotel I was staying at that night, the internet connection was sketchy at best and the absolute LAST thing I would try with that sort of connection would be new operating system installation that required it to be downloaded first.

So seeing no option and no way to kill the update, I let it proceed and literally went to bed with my laptop proceeding with this multiple hour process knowing that it would be running for the next several hours. Fast forward to the morning and I booted the laptop up not knowing what to expect. To my surprise, it appeared that everything had gone ok and I was now running Windows 10. I proceeded cautiously but because I was busy with work I didn't have any time to sit down with it and make a partition or backup. I was on the road and didn't have access to my external HDD's anyhow.

So several days go bye and I'm trying to decide if I like Windows 10 or not, I start booting things like FS9 to make sure they are all still working and things were fine. Last Friday night I was working on some Word files and shut down the laptop like I always do by just putting it into sleep mode. I had every intention of backing up my files when I had a chance last weekend.

By now if you're still reading this, you can guess where this is going. On Saturday morning, I pressed the power button to start it back up and was greeted with a message that said something to the effect of "Windows is preparing to repair your computer" followed by a message that said something to the effect of "this could take several hours".

Long story short, my laptop, which was upgraded to Windows 10 last Monday, worked fine for 4 days and on day 5 got itself stuck in the endless repair loop that has been reported by many, many others. I have tried every conceivable method to fix it, Googled every topic I could find, watch countless videos on YouTube and nothing, absolutely nothing I've tried has been able to get it out of the coma it's in which is this endless cycle of trying to repair itself, followed by reboots which only lead back to square one.

So..............

[MIKE JG]

After running some tests, it appears that the HDD is fine, it's just that Windows 10 cannot boot and therefore I can't access any of the files on the HDD. My last backup was about a month ago so it's not a end of the world thing but I do have files on there that I really need back.

So my question to the minds here is this: Can I copy files or folders or directories from my bricked laptop's HDD to an external HDD using the command prompt only?? I can access the command prompt but that's about it. No commands from the prompt will allows Windows 10 to boot either.

One suggestion was to download a copy of Windows 10 to a USB drive and try to boot the laptop from the USB port by changing the BIOS boot settings. We tried that yesterday and it still can't get out of the endless loop of trying to repair Windows.

I really just want some of the files off of the HDD that I've been working on in the last couple of weeks. I have the option to just remove the HDD from the laptop and copy the files that way but it seems like a complete waste to disassemble a perfectly good laptop just to access its HDD because the new OS is getting in the way.

Does anyone have any suggestions??

[gusbutcher]

GET linux on a flash drive and boot from there then save your files.

[Dave YVR ATC]

That's certainly quite the pickle.
As much of a pain that it would be, it seems that removing the HDD and plugging it into a PC to extract the needed data would be the simplest way to go. Is it a SATA HDD? How large? You could also look at it as a time to swap out the HDD with an SSD then do a fresh install of what ever OS you choose. Many if not most of Windows10 install issues come from installing over top of the the preceding OS. The gains of going to an SSD over the spinner would be pretty awesome on a laptop.

Tough call overall, going the SSD route to me is the lesser of an already large headache and your data on the HDD is still safe.

[col1948]

On another thread on here about Windows10, I too hate it. I did an update on one of my PC's but after only a couple of days I decided I didn't like it and there was an option to roll back, I was going to say is that option still there but after reading more of your post I see you can't do anything with the laptop.
In the other thread I said I've read more where people have had or having problems with W10 than the ones who are finding it OK.
I think this method they chose to more or less force it on you is terrible, and now the sneaky way of the 'Install later' button is yet another below the belt tactic.
I sincerely wish you get it sorted and I'm sorry I'm not much help in giving you an answer but I'm on your side regarding hating W10.

[Firebird]

After the update did you apply all the latest updates?
The reason I ask is that there was one, last year, that in which the constant reboot occurred and was fixed in the November update. Also did you update all your drivers with Win 10 versions. You need to do that.


Now I did find this by a laptop user.

I couldn't get windows 10 to starts. Endless startup loop of "kernel security check failure".Never ever asked for any advanced options. At one point the messages started changing though, Unexpected kernel mode trap. Probably in total 5-10 different error messages.

Used MediaCreation tool to make a USB to launch windows10. No luck either. Again an endless loop, with yes another different message.

After a few hours trying different things, on a fluke decided to unplug power, and take out the laptop battery for a few seconds. After that windows 10 just booted up. ....

Windows took a completely different (slower) startup path, than all the tries before.

It can't do any harm. I also read about somebody else having problems and leaving it powered off for nearly a month and then when powered back on it suddenly works.

Of course both of these scenarios seem to involve some instruction(s) being stuck in executable memory and clearing it all out, properly, fixed it. You never know.

[MIKE JG]

Steve that is a good idea about the battery, just tried that and no joy.

As far as the updates go, I'm assuming since it downloaded Win10 from the MS site the other night that it would include all the latest updates. Of course now I have no way of knowing.

Do you know if I can copy the hard drive files to an external drive using the command prompt??

[Greg]

Sorry to hear that Mike. I had the same endless loop problem after upgrading my laptop and have spent hours trying to fix it until I typed format c: in command prompt out of frustration...

Moving files with the command prompt is possible but not easy, assuming you even know all the complete paths to your files and folders as there's no way to browse through them.

I'd follow gusbutcher's advice above and make a bootable flash drive with Ubuntu (or Linux as he suggests) on it if you still have access to another computer, then plug it into your laptop and change the boot order in your bios so the OS on your flash drive boots first.

[MIKE JG]

The thought has crossed my mind to just wipe it and start over!

I did actually put Win10 on a USB and tried to boot it that way, still no joy. Maybe I didn't do it correctly as far as loading Win10 on the USB but I've got a few days in a hotel this week to try it again.

Our IT department guys are scheduled to come visit next Monday and if nothing else pull the HDD and copy the files. I'd do it myself but it's not technically my computer so I can't open it up without drawing the ire of the IT guys.

Just one big frustrating mess! Thanks everyone for the advice.

[Firebird]

There is one thing that comes to mind as to the cause of the problem. For Win 7/8 the small system reserved partition was set to 100MB but for Win 10 it needs to be at least 300MB.

This is the space that is used for the UEFI boot info and system recovery. I am wondering if your system recovery partition is big enough. If you are able to check the size of the partition and it is too small then maybe somebody could create a bootable USB with Partition Manage or Partition Wizard on it.
Then boot from that and increase the size of that small partition to 300MB, mine was actually set to 359MB, and then see if you can boot. If that partition filled up it might explain why it worked for some days before this happened.

[Tranquil]

For all those win 10 haters out there, here is a great little application that will remove the taskbar win10 icon and anything else to do with windows 10, including the 6gb of files it downloads! it will never mention windows 10 again! YES it is safe ive had it installed now for about 6 months!

http://win10wiwi.com/#download

Much thanks

Mark

[MIKE JG]

Verdict is in, something caused the hard drive to go tits up. Was that 'something' the installation of Windows 10?? Maybe, hard to say. Was Win10 too much for this HD to handle?? Also hard to say.

Good news is that I was able to recover all of my data off the now defunct hard drive so I haven't lost anything.

Off to find a suitable replacement.

[Firebird]

Good news there on the data side of things. I must admit I didn't consider a HD failure.

[MIKE JG]

IT guys say my hard drive is fine, they re-formatted it, reloaded Windows 7 and I'm back in operation again with the same machine. Seems to be working fine. Slowly re-installing everything.

Not going to upgrade to Win 10 on it though!

[Firebird]

You say that now, but they are coming to get you!

[awj112]

My sympathies. My only Windows 10 upgrade was also to a laptop and except nVidia video card issues which I think I may have finally found a solution for, I have had no problems.

[col1948]

Re Windows 10.
Yesterday was my grandson's birthday, he wanted a new joystick so I bought him the one he wanted and took it round for him.
While I was there he was in the middle of a PC racing car game, at first I thought it was on his Xbox but then I realised he had his PC connected.
What I'm leading to is the graphics were very good, he built the machine himself and he built it for gaming so obviously he got the best he could afford or what family bought him including me lol.
Any way he then put on his Flight sim (FSX) and tried his new joystick, I then noticed he had Windows 10, I asked him why he had that as I've read lots of bad comments on people using it along with FSX.
He said he has had no problems plus it's the way to go, he also said something about the new DirectX is made for Windows 10 or higher when when the next Windows version come available.
I was under the impression DirectX ran on any version of Windows but he said not the new version, it is made for Windows 10.
I must admit I was impressed with the graphics and speed of his machine, I'm tempted to ask him to build me one with the same spec.
I had Windows 10 on another machine but soon took it off as I didn't like it but after seeing his setup may be it was because my machine wasn't up to scratch and I just wanted it to be like windows 7 with a few more bells and whistles I don't know.

[VulcanDriver]

I have to admit my media PC is running W10 now and the DVD movies are amazing compared to W7 in fact I'd say they are better then the DVD player I have!

[MIKE JG]

I am back finally to full operation on this laptop after the disaster with Windows 10, very happily running Win 7 once again.

If you have the hardware to handle Windows 10 then I'm sure that is the way to go, if not, or if you are unsure, probably best to hold out as long as you can.

I just don't believe this particular laptop will handle Windows 10 efficiently.

[VulcanDriver]

Agree totally, the media PC is a HP mini tower with Intel processor and W10 works well on it. My FS9 PC is AMD Quad about 10 years old. W10 won't even install on it. But as I get 40fps in FS9 with all sliders on max I'm happy with it. I have updated the Video Card several times though.