Windows 10 Crash

Major Win 10 crash of my gaming PC. Doesn't look good.

Luckily for me my son and daughter in law are here for Thanksgiving and both are computer programmers. If they can't fix it, it's not fixable.

My son and his wife worked on my gaming PC all afternoon before and after the turkey feast, but were not successful.

This may be terminal so I'll have to start again tomorrow and see if any videos have been posted.

Seems that when I started the PC this morning to update DCS (my son wanted to give it a try in my new game room), that download was broken when my Norton decided it needed an immediate update. I quit the Norton prompt, went back to DCS and tried to restart the updater but then got two script screens saying that the Russian Fictional Scenario failed to load. I quit the DCS updater and switched to DCS Repair, then got the same messages.

When I decided to shut the computer down to restart, I inadvertently started the Windows 10 update. That process started but was again cut off by the Norton update which failed and crashed the computer. Now I get nothing but a blue screen. My son went through numerous DOS Prompt searches and tried to revert to earlier versions with no luck. This turned into an all day affair so I'm not too hopeful.

The jist of it is that I just spent a real big bag of money on the M4 and there are no pennies left for a new computer as it seems that my hard-drive has become the main casualty. I'll work on it in my spare time, but I might be down for a very long time.

I'll keep you posted.

Speed

Bugger!

Last resort:

Suggest trying:
Reload windows 10 from scratch and let it upgrade before further installations.

Windows 10 also has a repair function but it usually ends up suggesting a full reload.
It's called "reset your pc" in the: "allsettings\update and security\recovery\reset this pc" - this will keep a copy of your old windows and personal files and rebuild a new version of windows.

Recommendation: Deep-six Norton!  Very invasive and very high overhead. There are other products out there more efficient and just as effective.

Hope this helps.
Catseye

Also, if you're concerned about losing data through the reinstall process, just get a small cheap drive to reinstall Windows 10 onto and then attach your old drive through an external enclosure or via the board. Then you can attempt to pull any files you want from it before you try to reformat/reinstall using it. Pretty sure you can even run Windows 10 off of a USB if it's large enough.

Yes, I forgot that you can't boot your system so will have to use a W10 disk or USB memory stick - however your version of windows was purchased.

Thanks guys,

I'll try each of your suggestions and hopefully something will work. I've watched a few videos on this and it appears to be relatively common so maybe it's not that bad. But after watching two experts struggle with no results, I'm feeling a bit out of my element.

I'll keep you posted. Prep to take delivery of my car and getting ready to sell the boat and the 2009 BMW are taking up my time for now.

I opted to go for a complete reset while saving all my personal files (crossing my fingers I don't loose all that work). If I understand this process, all apps and software not originally loaded on the PC will be removed, Win 10 will be un-installed and a fresh reinstall will complete the process.

If that works then I'll need to re-install all licensed software including DCS, Tacview, TS, DSC-SRS and all those graphics programs if I ever decide to customize the F-18 skins. Sounds like a bag of work and several days of scale 10 headaches but I'm out of options. The PC just keeps re-cycling back to the same failure and I'm not able to enter safe mode because of that.

Yes, you will have to reinstall your apps.

But . . . . and here's the good part. W10 will save a copy of your original W10 install in a folder marked as such and you can go in there also to pull out any files you may require. It is essential however, to reinstall your apps in order for them to be registered correctly.

W10 will indicate that there are upgrades after the initial install. Upgrade them first until W10 is brought up to the latest version and then proceed with the App installs or other custom setups you prefer.

Always here for questions.

You are correct in that this is a common process from time to time. I've done it at least 6 or 7 times over the years. Things glitch, usually from a program that self-corrects your system such as Norton.

Cats . . . .

Thanks Cats,

That re-install process chugged away for several hours and looked very promising, but in the end when I came back to check on its status I found the screen back to the original auto-repair failed page and the same two options "Cry Out Loud" or "Run Away It Can't Be Fixed".

Tomorrow's another day.

I'll try this fix next https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+10+automatic+repair+loop+solved&rlz=1C1AOHY_enCA708CA709&oq=Windows+10+Automatic+Repair+Loop&aqs=chrome.2.0l6.16755j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_Wy-mXeeyHoaD8gK29pegDw31

Ouch - been there.

When all else fails - reformat your drive - set partitions and re-install.
Sounds like prime directories are corrupted.
Going back to the very start.

On the advice of my computer guru some 12 months ago I got rid of all anti-virus programs and now only rely on Windows Defender - since doing this I have experienced no problems.

Bingo!

Computer is dead in the water so I'll miss the flight tonight. Not sure when I'll get back. The thoughts of formatting my HD to enable a fresh install is pretty drastic so I'll be trying everything but that. I've got hundreds of hours of work in there, and I'm not too excited about pressing the "flush" lever.

Good news is, 401 Squadron has a nice shinny 2015 M4 in the motor pool, so I'm busy with that. Love it. It's awesome and scares the shit out of me. On the way home yesterday from Hamilton where I bought it, I was playing around with a hopped up Audi and after bliping the throttle a bit to pass a group of slower vehicles, I looked down in horror to see that I was doing 183 kph! Whew! That's drivers licence suspension stupid, so no more of that. I have to learn to respect the power and brute acceleration that this car has.

Now that the car is secured, I'll re-direct my focus toward fixing this Win 10 mess.

Nice pics from Willy's bar Dev, too bad we all couldn't all spend an afternoon there sampling good German beer and swapping stories.

Enjoy your flight fellas. I'll get back ASAP.

My nephew took me for a spin in his Tesla today.I couldn't believe how fast that it accelerates for an electric vehicle.

183! Yikes. On our highways that'd terrify me for sure.
Teslas are pretty cool simply because it's instantaneous torque. Puts you in the backseat. I think in a long distance run, the big high end boys still beat them out, but not off the line that's for sure.

I'm a little worried we've started talking about fast cars in a thread with the word 'crash' in the title though. Let's not tempt anybody upstairs.

Now that the M4 has been put to sleep for the winter, I'm redirecting my attention back to the gaming PC Win 10 issue.

So here I am, blind man walking through traffic, working all day yesterday in the Comd Prompt and entering DOS commands. I did succeed in backing up all of my files, so at least I didn't screw that up. My focus was to attempted repair via a regback command, but in the end, it didn't produce any results (the regback files all registered nil size values so I exited before overwriting anything). I tried repeated attempts to fix the problem from the Win 10 repair menus, but nothing came of it.

Now on to creating a bootable disk. Late yesterday afternoon I started to download the Windows media creation tool and when that was finally done at bedtime, I realized this morning that I had downloaded the wrong file. So I'm now downloading version 1903 from the September update. I also discovered that I lack any media with sufficient space to load this 5GB file (I have a package of DVDs but they are only 4.7GB) so I'm off to the store to purchase a thumb drive. My second download might be done after lunch?

I'm hoping that I can get windows running from the thumb drive media creation software, reload and overwrite all Windows 10 files and get the PC up and running again.

Oh yeh, I did discover during attempts to "Recover" an older version that Norton may be to blame. Remember I said that my DCS update was corrupted by Norton kicking in to update, and then Norton corrupted the Win 10 update when I rebooted to start over. The Recover command failed because it could not extract a certain Norton file.

Ergo, Norton is history. As soon as I get my game PC functioning again, I'll un-install Norton.

Wish me luck. I may or may not be on-line tonight, depending on how this all plays out.

Speed

Definitely dump Norton and use Windows Defender - since doing that my computer has had no problems.

Yeh definitely. My son said the same thing.

My efforts today amounted to nothing. Had to download the media creation tool three times before I got it complete, then I leaned about FATS32 and NFTS formats for the flash drive?? Finally copied the media creation tool to my new flash drive but couldn't get it to work since it's an .iso file intended to be burned onto a DVD, but my DVDs are too small. Windows 10 says that you can use either media, but give no direction for how to use it from a USB flash drive, so I just have this 5GB .iso file that does nothing. Next task is to figure out how to extract the folders/files inside the .iso file. The directions in several vids looks simple enough, but it just does not work that way when I do it?

Not giving up, but getting frustrated with all this Win 10 BS. Been broken now almost one month.

I'll keep you guys posted.

What are you using to download and work on this with if your system is down? If you have the .iso, try Etcher to make the USB drive. I use it at work and it's super simple. You pretty much can't mess it up.

https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Thanks Wolvie,

I'm using my laptop to do all the downloads and research, while the game PC will start, but always goes into auto repair mode, so a separate boot will be necessary to allow me to attempt a fresh install.

Your advice helps a lot because I was looking at various third party apps to extract the data within that .iso image file and I didn't trust any of them. Now I can download this one and give it a try.

I'm still concerned that this will wipe my HD, so I'm going to see if I can get back into the Comd Prompt to backup my DCS files/picture archives onto this new flash drive and then dump it back to my laptop for safe keeping. Then if the game PC HD gets reformatted, I can re-install my other software from the web and get back up and running eventually.

Thanks

Speed wrote:
I'm still concerned that this will wipe my HD, so I'm going to see if I can get back into the Comd Prompt to backup my DCS files/picture archives onto this new flash drive and then dump it back to my laptop for safe keeping. Then if the game PC HD gets reformatted, I can re-install my other software from the web and get back up and running eventually.

Thanks

Very highly recommend you get a small SSD drive (maybe 128gb) and install that as a new C: with the fresh install of windows. Then connect your old drive, pull everything you need off of it, and then wipe it to use as a data store. Drives aren't too expensive and if you're not using an SSD currently for your system drive, it will significantly speed up your system on boot.

You're 100% right and this is exactly what I've wanted to do, understanding that my main drive is the weak link in my system. My boot drive (X:) is SSD but not the big 2TB drive (D:) where everything is saved. If I had a SSD set up as C: and could run Win 10 and DCS there, then had the D: for use as mass storage, then that would be perfect.  

I think I'll look into this before attempting a fresh install as it might pay big dividends combined with ditching Norton.

Now I just need to add up the size requirements for Win 10 and DCS and all the modules. I notice that all of the terrain/plane downloads all say that 120GB free space is required. Is that 120 GB per DSC World + 120GB for each map and aircraft? Or does that mean a minimum of 120GB free space is required to run everything?? That will determine the size of the SSD that I need.

Thanks

Much appreciate the advice.

If you are going to have both Windows and DCS on the on SSD then I think you should go for a 500GB. I have Windows on a 225GB SSD and DCS World OpenBeta on a separate 225GB SSD. I also have DCS World (release Version) on my 2TB storage HDD. My DCS World OpenBeta is currently taking up 164GB.

Thanks Dev,

Good advice. I sent my system specs to my son along with the size requirements for DCS World plus the modules needed and he suggested that I get a 1TB drive. He said that 500GB would work, but the minimum free space recommended by DCS (120GB) is exactly that, minimum. So he recommended that I run the SSD with at least 250GB free space, as he explained that this will allow the SSD to continually optimize its use of memory resources and extend the life of the drive. Greek to me, but he knows his stuff, so dad will obey!!.

I also reviewed some recommendations on line as to the best SSD from a value/performance standpoint and the Samsung 860 EVO 1TB scores at the top and is compatible with my system. Now I just need to wait for Black Friday with current prices ranging from $205 (Newegg), $219 (Amazon) to $229 (Best Buy).

So the plan would be to keep my current boot SSD (X:), install a new 1TB SSD (C:) and load Win 10, DCS and modules into that, and then set up my HDD (D:) as mass storage. Once Win 10 is up and running on the new 1TB SSD, then I could access the D:\HDD and remove the corrupted version of Win 10, Norton etc and maybe run my TeamSpeak, DCS SRS and some of my graphics apps from there. That might help to isolate DCS demands and improve flight performance?

So, all this will take a few more weeks to play out, so keep the dust off my Hornet till I get back!!

P.S. Just wanted to thank you and Squiz and Alpine for your service as we continue to live in peace and freedom thanks to your dedication and the sacrifices of so many young men and women over the decades.

Cheers

Speed