Backed up a corrupted Win 10 boot file.
Looking for a way to repair windows and restore acronis backup w/o corrupting the OS.
A couple of months ago I did a backup to my external drive (I do a full backup then differential for 2 weeks then start again). I usually keep my laptop on and schedule a backup every monday, wednesday & frinday. When my external desk gets full I delete the oldest backups. Along the way something happened to my Windows boot file(s) and now the only backups I have are with the corrupted Windows OS.
When I try to boot my computer I get up to the Windows 10 "Window" where it loads whatever that section does. Next it flashes like its going to the next screen but instead I get to a gray screen with the circular icon spinning around and it never goes any further. Sometimes if I turn it off and try to restart a few times it will eventually start.
When I dry to do a "Repair Startup" from the windows install disk its unable to repair it. On occasion it reports there is a missing or corrupted file.
Eventually it got to the point that it wouldn't even get to the windows icon. I decided to try a fresh windows install then an Acronis restore and hope that the missing file wouldn't be overwritten (though I knew it probably would). And as expected it overwrote the boot.
About a month ago i discovered what file was the culprit and tried to replace it but was unsuccessful.
Windows did an automatic update last night and shut down my computer. When I tried to restart it failed as usual. I went through my routine of trying to start, shutting down and repeat it again. If its going to work it will usually by the 3rd or 4th time. No luck today. I decided to retry the windows repair but was unsuccessful. A couple of boot tries again and it booted. So now its up but I know if I reboot it will fail again as usual.
This situation is a bit confusing. If there is a file that is missing or corrupted than I would expect it would never start no matter how many times I try. Also if it gets to the windows logo it seems to me that the problem is not the MBR.
I've been away from servicing Windows OS that I don't know my way around it.
Is there a way to reinstall Windows and then do the Acronis restore w/o overriding the repaired section of the OS?
My disk has 3 partitions: 1st is 100 MB and reports (EFI System partition); 2nd Drive_C (C:) 697.48 GB NTFS, Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition); 3rd (F:) 957 MB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)
Anyone have any thoughts short of reinstalling windows and starting all over again? I'd really like to avoid having to reinstall all my software.
Thank you for reading this and any help you can offer.
Bruce
Hi Mustang,
I like your solution. I'm in the process of making a new install media as there was an update a couple of days ago. Interestingly yesterday I was still having the same problem. This AM however it was booting fine which makes me wonder if the update just hadn't finished because it couldn't restart to finish the install. Either way I'm making a new installation thumb drive. Once I'm certain I got a properly functioning system I'll make a new full backup and probably a clone disk as well.
Thanks again for the help. I can't thank you enough. If anything goes wrong along the way I'll report it here.
bruce