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Hi,
Spent all day yesterday trying to recover from a failed update on a 64bit Lenovo laptop that was completely up to date before starting the upgrade to 1803 a couple of days ago. I left the upgrade working overnight. Here's the screen after I enter my login, password and wait some time for the system to load..
No icons from my applications, no wireless, cannot even access the 'Start' menu or Search! I have looked through many websites and pages but no-one else seems to have had this issue....
I started exploring my laptop... The only way I could get the laptop to reboot was to use 'Ctrl-Alt-Del' to bring up the Task Menu, then there is a 'Restart' button bottom right. No Windows services were running.
Upon restarting, I cannot access the recovery menu... nothing worked... tried all function buttons, Shift key and Windows key combinations etc. Can't recall exactly how I did it now - but trying to recover, I get to:-
then:
Tried them all but no change in the final outcome.... and keep coming back to:
None of the options work to install the windows update.
Thinking I might be able to get the wifi working to continue the update download, I use Task Manager to start lots of services, not really knowing what I am doing.. but I get the wifi icon in the task bar, but cannot find a way to see the accessible wifi networks or log onto them... After working all day on this, I leave the machine running overnight as I appear to have triggered an update - at least the message read's Getting my machine ready! In the morning, I see:
Click 'OK' and back where I started.
So more research... already a couple of unproductive days invested.... and came across a website and started to read .. and read...
Used Powershell to access diskpart and came up with this:
I did find that my files are located in Drive E:/[user]/my documents and that the version of Windows installed is 10.0.17134.1
Accessing c: (Volume 1) there is [EFI] and a recovery.text file with no content (0 bytes).
Arrived at a point where doing something with Diskpart might really mess the system up... if that is possible! Can anyone/someone help me out of this? I have downloaded a new Windows 10 ISO to a USB drive but don't want to clean install and lose my files or applications - lots of which I no longer have the CD's for!... and no backups.
I fell into the trap of having three computers, two of which updated ok and felt somewhat reassured to update the third... Hoping...
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
I am totally in for a class action lawsuit!!
Maybe some enterprising lawyer will do that. I hope they do. As a mere peon, there's nothing I can do. But Microsoft should not be allowed to get away with destroying large numbers of their customers' computers without facing *some* consequence.
Same here, screen shots could be my situation. I am also Dell Desktop. Infuriating experience.
I also could have written this post. I've been reading through this thread and I couldn't even get to any of the screens they're talking about. My computer won't let me log on. It says my password is wrong, which I know it isn't. Then if I click reset password, it says i need to contact my System Administrator, there is no such person. It's just a personal laptop I use at home. This whole mess is extremely frustrating and I am totally in for a class action lawsuit!!
Thanks for the tip! I wish I'd known that a couple of days ago. When the disk comes back from the recovery service, I'll see if I could have saved a few hundred. (As i like to say, "One way or another, you always pay for your education.")
The consensus seems to be, 1803 killed it. Reinstall Windows from bootable media.
I've seen 2 laptops in the last 2 days with this issue, where the user received an update that then left them with a blank desktop and no workable Start Button. I was struck by what a good job it had made of trashing the computer with the first machine yesterday, but when I had phone call the same day from someone describing what sounded like the same symptoms I couldn't believe it. Sure enough, on seeing the second machine today, it was exactly the same as the first one. The only thing that did look different on the second laptop was a message in the bottom corner saying Windows needed to be activated. I don't recall seeing that on the first machine, although it may have been there.
Ctrl-alt-del allows the Task manager to start, but any attempt to run any new task from there is just ignored. One of the laptops is originally a Windows 7 HP one, the other a 1 or 2 year old HP, originally Windows 10 I believe. You can eventually get into the Advanced repair options, but nothing in there helps. As usual System Restore says there are no restore points, because MS decided to start turning it off - even though it very often gives a good way to get the system working again without a reinstall. The repair options offer a restart to Roll Back, or 2 identical listings for the Windows System. The Roll Back starts, then says something has gone wrong as usual. Trying the Reset again starts but then produces the same message.
Both machines had to be reinstalled from bootable media in the end. All the user's data files were found in \Windows.old.0000 folder.
