Total Boot Failure After Removing Second SSD - Win 10

• As far as I can tell, there is no way to select 2 options. You can either disable signature verification or anti-virus. I tried a few things but it would always toggle between the two issues.
• Next I renamed the file as you suggested, performed the BCDEdit command, exited the command prompt, and continued. Here is what I got:

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

File:\Windows\system32\drivers\WindowsTrustedRT.sys

Error code: 0x000007b

You'll need to use recovery tools. If you...

(1) WdBoot.sys is a Windows Defender driver. I wonder, what happens if you "disable early launch anti-malware protection" on the same screen where you "disable driver signature enforcement"?

If that fails to get a boot, then...

(2) Especially if Defender is your real-time anti-virus app, you'll want that working well. However, let's try renaming it just to see whether we can get a boot. I've seen that work with a different anti-virus but the same error message in another thread. (It certainly wouldn't work to rename Winload.exe, but WdBoot.sys isn't as critical.)

REN E:\Windows\system32\drivers\wd\WdBoot.sys WDBoot.sys.XXX

BCDEdit /Set {Default} SafeBoot Network

To know whether you really need to reenter that /SET command...

BCDEdit /Enum {Default}

If "SafeBoot Network" is still in the list, you needn't reenter it. Here was mine...

C:\WINDOWS\system32>bcdedit /enum {Current}

Windows Boot Loader

identifier {current}

device partition=C:

path \WINDOWS\system32\winload.efi

description Windows 10

locale en-US

inherit {bootloadersettings}

recoverysequence {6b507ed5-4b5c-11ec-b24b-855da3351805}

displaymessageoverride Recovery

recoveryenabled Yes

isolatedcontext Yes

allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075

osdevice partition=C:

systemroot \WINDOWS

resumeobject {67c572bf-4b5b-11ec-b24a-74e6e2074932}

nx OptIn

safeboot Network <<<Boots to Safe Mode with Networking

bootmenupolicy Standard

I was able to enter BCDEdit /Set {Default} SafeBoot Network and it performed successfully. After "Continue"...it just booted to the screen that says there is a digital signature error in winload.exe. I can access some options, but none of them do anything other than the option to ignore digital signature (option 7), but that gives the same issue:

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

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

So no change really.

(1) Yep, BCDBoot, in regenerating the boot files, these days will break contact with the internal recovery environment that is on the Recovery partition. It gives you a new BCD (Boot Configuration Data) store & other boot files that should have worked, but without good entries to use the Recovery partition. It can be repaired, if we can get you booted back to Windows. In the meantime, right, use the external one.

(2) DISM & SFC did work for me in the external recovery environment. I didn't have to use /ScratchDir. The output is below. I don't know why you have permissions issues.

(3) Let's see whether you can boot to Safe Mode with Networking. Get to the Command Prompt, & enter...

BCDEdit /Set {Default} SafeBoot Network <<<Those are pointy brackets

Close the Command Prompt, then Click "Continue" to hopefully boot to Windows Safe Mode. If you get there, see whether SFC & DISM will run at an Admin Command Prompt...

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

SFC /Scannow

To get back to Normal Mode, enter...

BCDEdit /DeleteValue {Current} SafeBoot

Then reboot. I hope that does it. Good luck.

Here was my output in the recovery environment...

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19041.1288]

(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

X:\Sources>DiskPart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.964

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.

On computer: MININT-OP0NSSM

DISKPART> List Vol

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

Volume 0 E DVD-ROM 0 B No Media

Volume 1 C PCR Hard NTFS Partition 930 GB Healthy

Volume 2 ESP FAT32 Partition 99 MB Healthy Hidden

Volume 3 WinRE 21H2 NTFS Partition 847 MB Healthy Hidden

Volume 4 D ESDUSB-21H2 FAT32 Removable 14 GB Healthy

DISKPART> Exit

Leaving DiskPart...

X:\Sources>:1 DISM /Image:C:\ /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:ESD:D:\Sources\Install.esd

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool

Version: 10.0.19041.746

Image Version: 10.0.19044.1826

The scratch directory size might be insufficient to perform this operation. This can cause unexpected behavior.

Use the /ScratchDir option to point to a folder with sufficient scratch space. The recommended size is at least 1024 MB.

[==========================100.0%==========================] The restore operation completed successfully.

The operation completed successfully.

X:\Sources>SFC /Scannow /Offbootdir=c:\ /Offwindir=C:\Windows

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.

For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at

windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline

repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag.

X:\Sources>

A couple responses:

• Yes, I chose 6 (Windows Pro)
• Yes, I still get the same error message (but the temporary folder name is different every time). It happens whether I use the ScratchDir to be on E: or D: Quite frustrating since it doesn't make sense.
• At this point, if I boot the main drive (the one with the installation), it doesn't get far at all. It won't let access a command prompt. It used to give me some options before I did the BCDBoot operation, but not now. So in order to get to a command prompt, I have to boot from the USB disc.