Windows 10: Update 1803 failed - leaves laptop machine unusable

Anonymous
2018-05-05T19:31:55+00:00

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...

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-06-03T00:56:28+00:00

    I finally found from all my research how to force it to give me a reset option (the listed one didn't do a thing).  All looked like everythig was going well.....chose to reset and save my data.  It reset alright.....but lost all pictures, docs, music!  MS Sucks!  I've spent unbelievable hours trying to find a decent program to recover these files. Nothing is working as it states it will......even paid $40 for Wondershare.  All it does is lock up on me and take like 3 days to 'try' to recover a handful of files.  Now I'm battling with them for a refund.  I know they think I'm crazy.  But this whole thing is MS's fault.  If money were no object I'd sue the pants off this organization.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-06-15T09:14:46+00:00

    Who pays for the costs and damages ?????

    Thanks Microsoft Corporation

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-06-19T03:38:20+00:00

    Success!! I am writing this from my newly restored PC.

    Method #2 finally worked. The problem was, the Windows Media Installation tool is apparently a fragile thing. Even though it says something like "verifying download", the download was for me corrupt the first two times. Today I downloaded it again onto three different drives. Finally, one of them worked.

    But the new Win 10 installation lost all of my personal files. Thankfully, I had hired a data recovery service earlier, so I didn't lose any data.

    The total bill for this adventure was,

      $499 ... Data Recovery Service

      $57.89 ... 1 TB USB drive for Data Recovery

      $300 ... 12 hours of my time (cheap @$25/hr) 

      $99 ... lost use of the computer for 33 days

      $955.89 TOTAL - THANKS, MICROSOFT!!

    Thanks, Microsoft. Your screwup cost this customer $556.89 direct cash, and nearly $1000 overall.

    My suggestion for anyone who is trying Method #2 ... if it doesn't work the first time, use the tool to download Win-10 again, onto a different disk, and keep trying until it does.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-06-19T07:15:15+00:00

    Success!! I am writing this from my newly restored PC.

    Method #2 finally worked. The problem was, the Windows Media Installation tool is apparently a fragile thing. Even though it says something like "verifying download", the download was for me corrupt the first two times. Today I downloaded it again onto three different drives. Finally, one of them worked.

    But the new Win 10 installation lost all of my personal files. Thankfully, I had hired a data recovery service earlier, so I didn't lose any data.

    The total bill for this adventure was,

      $499 ... Data Recovery Service

      $57.89 ... 1 TB USB drive for Data Recovery

      $300 ... 12 hours of my time (cheap @$25/hr) 

      $99 ... lost use of the computer for 33 days

      $955.89 TOTAL - THANKS, MICROSOFT!!

    Thanks, Microsoft. Your screwup cost this customer $556.89 direct cash, and nearly $1000 overall.

    My suggestion for anyone who is trying Method #2 ... if it doesn't work the first time, use the tool to download Win-10 again, onto a different disk, and keep trying until it does.

    Reinstalling with boot media won't lose any data files unless you format the drive. Of course, for some applications, it won't be possible to just reinstall the application and marry it back to the original data files even if you have them.

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-06-19T12:06:12+00:00

    *>>*Reinstalling with boot media won't lose any data files unless you format the drive.

    Unfortunately, in my case, this is not true. A Windows.old folder exists, and it contains a Users/<MyAccountName>, but the Desktop folder is empty. All the files are gone.

    In the meantime, in the main account -- weirdly -- the contents of my "Recycle Bin" were preserved. That's all I have. A blank desktop with a "Recycle Bin" containing files I threw away.

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