Windows 10 finally booted to desktop after 4 hours of freezing on boot. What do I do so that this doesn't happen tomorrow?

Anonymous
2024-07-25T02:30:12+00:00

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.)

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Ramesh Srinivasan 87,965 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2024-07-29T09:38:02+00:00

    D has the paging file. You need to move it to C or another hard disk and reboot, before detaching the D drive.

    https://www.windowscentral.com/how-move-virtual...

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-07-29T10:10:21+00:00

    I’m slowly reaching the point where it’s not worth the time or effort to save the C: drive, and doing a fresh Windows Install would solve all this.

    I have to restart maybe 20-30 times to even have a chance of successfully booting.

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  3. Ramesh Srinivasan 87,965 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2024-07-29T10:20:17+00:00

    D and P have pagefile.sys. If you plan to disconnect the other six drives to test, the paging file must be turned off for D and P.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-07-29T10:28:02+00:00

    Thanks for your help, but that requires me being able to boot to desktop. Now even with only C: drive connected it’s freezing on boot. I just don’t know anymore.

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  5. Ramesh Srinivasan 87,965 Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2024-07-29T10:30:13+00:00

    As I stated earlier, the procedure should be done before detaching the drives. You may reattach them and turn off the paging file on those drives.

    Also, reset the user shell folder locations (e.g., Documents, Music, Videos, etc) to default, if you've configured them to point to those drives.

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