Same here. I found my files in Windows.old and copied them to an external drive using Notepad launched from the Command Prompt. Now I'm trying to figure out how to recover/reset/reinstall on my Dell Inspiron 15.
Windows 10: Update 1803 failed - leaves laptop machine unusable
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Anonymous
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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Anonymous
2018-05-25T22:45:16+00:00 -
Anonymous
2018-05-25T19:23:05+00:00 it's crazy how the problems are so similar but not exact and the solutions, such as they are, are similar but not exact. One thing is for certain and it is exact... Microsoft screwed up royally! And we all are paying for it.
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Anonymous
2018-05-25T19:18:39+00:00 Well, I ran across a Microsoft support page in some of my many hours of investigating this mess... In my case it worked, well kind of. Here goes... From the sign in screen or any place that you can reach the task manager and see a power button on your screen anywhere, press a shift key and the power button then restart all together. This actually brought me to a way to reset the machine. It asked if I wanted it to keep my files and of course I did. During the process that was going well, we had a power failure, and I had to start all over again. Finally when everything seemed fine and well, I looked and sure enough all my files are gone, pictures, documents excetera. Now in my case it reverted back to Windows 7 which is what came on this machine. I do not know if when reverting back to Windows 7, or the power failure, or both of those things or neither of those things was the reason that it did not keep my files . But it did not! Further investigation led me to a free download of a free recovery program and now I am painstakingly going in and recovering file by file by file. Pain in the royal neck, but at least I'm not without my files and pictures. And I am certainly saving all of them to an external drive, where probably I will put everything from now on.
Hi - I was actually able to get into that screen on all 3 of the machines I've seen (just had another phone call actually that sounds like the same error). On the machines I've seen, however, the Reset function wouldn't work. It started the process then after just a few seconds came back and said something had gone wrong, didn't even try to tell me what. So far, the only remedy has been a new install from media, then drag the data files back from \windows.old.000.
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Anonymous
2018-05-25T19:05:35+00:00 Well, I ran across a Microsoft support page in some of my many hours of investigating this mess... In my case it worked, well kind of. Here goes... From the sign in screen or any place that you can reach the task manager and see a power button on your screen anywhere, press a shift key and the power button then restart all together. This actually brought me to a way to reset the machine. It asked if I wanted it to keep my files and of course I did. During the process that was going well, we had a power failure, and I had to start all over again. Finally when everything seemed fine and well, I looked and sure enough all my files are gone, pictures, documents excetera. Now in my case it reverted back to Windows 7 which is what came on this machine. I do not know if when reverting back to Windows 7, or the power failure, or both of those things or neither of those things was the reason that it did not keep my files . But it did not! Further investigation led me to a free download of a free recovery program and now I am painstakingly going in and recovering file by file by file. Pain in the royal neck, but at least I'm not without my files and pictures. And I am certainly saving all of them to an external drive, where probably I will put everything from now on.
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Anonymous
2018-05-25T19:00:06+00:00 "Microsoft is aware of these reports and is actively investigating this issue.
... please consider one of the following options:
Option 2: Wait until a solution becomes available
Microsoft is currently investigating potential solutions and workarounds and will update this thread once they are available. If you have another working device available to you, you may wish to wait until another solution becomes available.
That is to say, it caught Microsoft completely by surprise. They have no idea what happened, or why they turned your computer into a useless hunk of rubbish. So just turn it off and use somebody else's until they figure out what they did wrong and how to fix it.
My computer has been inanimate rubbish for 10 days now. I'm still waiting.