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My computer restarted overnight (assuming from an update) and froze on the boot screen where it shows the motherboard logo. It's also been freezing at the 'Preparing Automatic Repair' screen about 9/10 times.
I've tried resetting the CMOS by unplugging the power cord and holding down the power button, but it didn't help.
The few times I managed to access the troubleshooting tools and the command prompt I tried the bootrec /fixboot commands but I ran into the problem of "Path not found" at the attrib c:\boot\bcd -h -r -s step. On the final restart before I was about to plug in the bootable USB to reinstall windows, it booted to desktop with everything working as normal.
I feel like this is only temporary and I'll run into the same problem the next time it restarts. What do I need to check/fix so that this problem doesn't happen again? Or do I just need to bite the bullet and do a fresh install of Windows?
(I'm not sure if this was due to my fiddling around but I now have 2 recovery partitions on my C drive, and an addition EFI System Partition on an external HDD.)
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.
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Hi Pasqetti,
I can't say for sure, but you may be right. These issues require extensive testing, and service centers test by dismantling the peripherals, checking for bad/bulged capacitors, checking the voltages, or swapping the motherboard to narrow down the issue.
Small update with what I managed to complete so far.
Memtest86 completed successfully with no errors
Attached C: and D: drive to an older PC, it booted to desktop as normal. C: passed chkdsk with no errors
Transplanted GPU into older PC, it booted without any problems.
All that’s left is to test the CPU, PSU and MOBO
Hi Pasqetti,
So the hard drive is good.
Great, thanks for the update.
This will probably be the final update. After a lot of swapping components back and forth I’ve narrowed it down to the CPU.
Thanks for all your help troubleshooting.
