Total identified Windows installations: 0

Anonymous
2014-01-12T21:17:22+00:00

Please help me.

After updating my Microsoft Surface RT to Windows 8.1, it failed to start up again. 

It will prepair and attempt auto repair, which also keeps failing and will give me:

Log file: C:\windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt

I tried to recover with the USB, but this doesn't work.

After trying to bootrec/rebuildbcd I find that there are "Total identified Windows installations: 0"

Also I will get either a Bad system config info blue screen.

I really don't know what went wrong, I am just pretty upset that my tablet remains unresponsive.

What else is there to do?

I live in The Netherlands but bought my tablet in the US. Could this be the problem?

***Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.***

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2014-01-13T13:53:47+00:00

Hi,

  1. First Start System Recovery Options. To start system recovery options.

a) Boot from the disk, Once you get the welcome screen of installation with the option “Install now”

b) Click on Repair your computer

c) On the next page click on Advanced Options

d) Now click on Troubleshoot

e) Lastly click on Command prompt and follow the on screen instructions

  1. At the prompt, type the bootrec command as shown below and then press Enter:

bootrec /rebuildbcd

The bootrec command will search for Windows installations not included in the Boot Configuration Data and then ask you if you'd like to add one or more to it.
3. You should see the following message.
Scanning all disks for Windows installations.

Please wait, since this may take a while...

Successfully scanned Windows installations.

Total identified Windows installations: 0

The operation completed successfully.

  1. Since the BCD store exists and lists a Windows installation, you'll first have to "remove" it manually and then try to rebuild it again.

At the prompt, execute the bcdedit command as shown and then press Enter:

bcdedit /export c:\bcdbackup

The bcdedit command is used here to export the BCD store as a file: bcdbackup. There's no need to specify a file extension.

The command should return the following on screen:

The operation completed successfully.

Meaning the BCD export worked as expected.

  1. At this point, you need to adjust several file attributes for the BCD store so you can manipulate it.

At the prompt, execute the attrib command exactly like this:

attrib c:\boot\bcd -h -r -s

What you just did with the attrib command was remove the hidden, read-only, and system attributes from the file bcd. Those attributes restricted the actions you could take on the file. Now that they're gone, you can manipulate the file more freely - specifically, rename it.

  1. To rename the BCD store, execute the ren command as shown: ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

Now that the BCD store is renamed, you should now be able to successfully rebuild it, as you tried to do in Step 2.

Note: You could delete the BCD file entirely since you're about to create a new one. However, renaming the existing BCD accomplishes the same thing since it's now unavailable to Windows, plus provides you yet another layer of backup, in addition to the export you did in Step 5, if you decide to undo your actions.

  1. Try rebuilding the BCD again by executing the following, followed by Enter: bootrec /rebuildbcd

which should produce this in the Command Prompt window:

Scanning all disks for Windows installations.

Please wait, since this may take a while...

Successfully scanned Windows installations.

Total identified Windows installations: 1

[1]  D:\Windows

Add installation to boot list? Yes<Y>/No<N>/All<A>:

meaning that the BCD store rebuild is progressing as expected.

  1. At the Add installation to boot list? question, type Enter Y or Yes, followed by the Enter key.

You should see this on screen:

The operation completed successfully.

meaning that the BCD rebuild is complete.

  1. Restart your computer.

Assuming that an issue with the BCD store was the only problem, Windows should start as expected.

If not, continue to troubleshoot whatever specific issue you're seeing that's preventing Windows from booting normally.

Important: Depending on how you started System Recovery Options, you may need to remove a disc or flash drive before restarting.

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Anonymous
2016-09-06T15:57:15+00:00

Hi Sandor,

To undo the step 5 provided by Vijay B, replace the -h -r -s  to  +h +r +sin the Command Prompt.

Please let us know how it goes for us to assist you further.

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220 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-01-10T21:39:11+00:00

    In my case, I'e booted the installation-DVD, Repair, Advances, Command Prompt.

    Then I navigated to C:\Windows\System32\config.

    There I've renamed ...

    DEFAULT

    SAM

    SECURITY

    SOFTWARE

    SYSTEM

    to *.old and copied the registry-hives from C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack to C:\Windows\System32\config.

    After this, I was able to boot, without loced drive, without Critical_Process_dies, etc.

    Thanks for this! This fixed my problem. However, I couldn't do it on the command prompt since CMD is one of my weak points. What I did was

    1. Take the HDD and connected it to a working computer as an external drive. 
    2. Turned on "View hidden files". 
    3. Navigate to X:\Windows\System32\Config\RegBack (WHERE "X" is the assigned drive letter of your none booting HDD.)
    4. Copy the files - DEFAULT, SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE, SYSTEM
    5. Paste those files into X:\Windows\System32\config and overwrite the old files. (WHERE "X" is the assigned drive letter of your none booting HDD.)

    The problem that caused the issue? Latest Windows Updates - 01-10-2018. As soon as I turned the computer on after doing the above fix, computer boots but I get the "Windows updates could not install. Reverting changes..." error.  SIGH!

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-01-07T18:45:56+00:00

    My worked until step 6, then it said “the system cannot find the file specified” now what do i do????   Having same problem to this post

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-11-01T04:18:49+00:00

    Hi ,

    Sorry, I don’t speak English very well!

    Let’s remember what was my problem. I have a tablet Surface with Windows RT originaly installed on it. It didn’t worked anymore. Black screen with spinning wheel. Impossible to reinitialise using vol (-) and push start etc. I tried a few times to clean the disk (0) by the bios and tried to reinitialise. Impossible to repair.

    Then, I downloaded and copy on a USB drive (formated fat32) the original «Windows RT» from this link:

    http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/Surface-RT-Recovery-Image.shtml . Unfortunately, the Microsoft download center doesn’t offer this possibility. Then I reinitialised the tablet easily and it worked almost fine. The i.e. was slow etc.

    Immediately after I downloaded a recovery image to update at Windows RT 8.1 using the link I received from the Microsoft download center (Rabih Ibtisam, technical support, french department) and followed his instructions:   https://support.microsoft.com/fr-fr/surfacerecoveryimage

    It was very easy to reinitialise and the tablet work fine now. I hope his could help someone else.

    Thanks for what you did to help me,

    Marc-André

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