Total Boot Failure After Removing Second SSD - Win 10

Anonymous
2022-07-14T20:03:36+00:00

Windows 10: I have a primary disc for the OS and a secondary disc for just data (or maybe not???). I took out the secondary disc (in order to a bigger one in) and rebooted. I got a boot failure and Windows automatically tried to repair the issue, but it failed. I then replaced the secondary disc (so system is back as it was), but this did not solve the problem. During the "automatic repair process" it must have broken something.

The only thing that comes to mind is I may have split the pagefile to both discs, so when I took the data disc out it may have gotten confused.

So far, I have seemingly tried all of the "safe mode" options, other than than an option to restore a new Win 10 OS (last resort). I'd like to be able to at least somehow get into the OS so I can can deactivate licenses and put them on a new computer. At least some way to transition stuff to a new computer.

I guess in prior Windows versions (I'm still old school dating to 3.11), but this thing would not have happened. It all started with an automatic repair process that changed things such that putting the drives back "as is" didn't resolve it.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-07-19T00:11:21+00:00

    I tried BootRec /FixMBR which completed successfully. However, the boot response was the same.

    I then tried BootRec /FixBoot , but it said that access is denied. Do I need some switches to be more specific?

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-07-18T23:29:00+00:00

    Try these commands that also apply to a Legacy installation...

    BootRec /FixMBR

    BootRec /FixBoot

    Notes:

    FixMbr: Writes the master boot record of the system partition using the

               master boot record compatible with Windows. This operation

           does not overwrite the existing partition table.

    FixBoot: Write a new boot sector onto the system partition using the

              boot sector compatible with Windows.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-07-18T13:15:28+00:00

    Some udpates...and a clue?

    (1) Everything checked out and was marked appropriately. I performed BCDBoot  E:\Windows  /s  C:  /f  BIOS . The command reported to be successful. I rebooted but no improvement/change.

    (2) From the link from Volume_Z, I tried "FIX 2 – Disable Driver Signature Enforcement Temporarily"

    I booted from the disc (not the USB drive) and it threw me into the options, one of them being "7) - Disable driver signature enforcement"

    I chose that option and got:

    Your PC/Device needs to be repaired

    The operating system couldn't be loaded because a critical system driver is missing or contains errors.

    File:\Windows\system32\drivers\wd\WdBoot.sys

    Error code: 0xc0000102

    You'll need to use recovery tools. If you don't have any installation media...

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-07-18T06:04:37+00:00

    OK. If there is no mention of UEFI in BIOS, then that can't be the problem.

    (1) With just the primary plugged in, let's be sure the System Reserved partition (Data) is the only Active partition. In a Legacy install, there must be only one per HDD, the one that holds the boot files. Then, try BCDBoot this way...

    Volume 0 G DVD-ROM 0B

    Volume 1 C Data NTFS Partition 100MB

    Volume 2 E OS NTFS Partition 237GB

    Volume 3 F NTFS Partition 860MB Hidden

    Volume 4 D ESD-USB FAT32 Removable 14GB

    DiskPart <<<Enter DiskPart

    List Vol <<<Should look same as above

    Select Volume 1 <<<Select System Reserved (Data)

    Active <<<Make it Active (but it already is)

    Select Volume 2 <<<Select the Windows partition

    Inactive <<<Make it Inactive

    Select Volume 3 <<<Select the Recovery partition

    Inactive <<<Make it Inactive

    Exit <<<Exit DiskPart

    BCDBoot  E:\Windows  /s  C:  /f  BIOS

    That specifically tells BCDBoot to put the Legacy (BIOS) boot files into Data instead of letting it default. (But it did look like they probably already are there). I hope that does it. Good luck.

    (2) Try what Volume Z suggested about temporarily disabling Driver Signature Enforcement. Then, as Kapil Arya said in the article, try to recover a winload.exe that has a valid signature.

    (3) questions_ would be next.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-07-18T04:56:15+00:00

    Wait a minute. The startup repair efforts made so far have revealed

    The operating system couldnt be loaded because the digital signature of a file or one of its dependencies couldn't be verified.

    File:\Windows\system32\winload.exe

    Error code: 0xc000428

    I guess we could have told from "winload.exe" it's MBR.

    The issue is error code 0xc000428. This has happened to others:

    Windows 10: The digital signature for this file couldn't be verified

    There has been a webpage set up on fixing the error by an MVP:

    [FIX] Error 0xc0000428, The Digital Signature For This File Couldn’t Be Verified

    At the very least the part about temporarily disabling Driver Signature Enforcement seems to be worth a try.

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