Can't resolve DNS and can't repair Windows

Hi all,
last saturday I updated my Windows 11 Home through windows Update and the next day my PC is not able to resolve DNS but can ping outside my LAN (I can also access my local NAS via browser but can't map external drives).
I noticed that my DNS Client and Windows Firewall services are stopped and I'm unable to start them since I got an error 5.
So I decided to run a DISM repair using this guide and the command

• DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

tells me that my image is repairable.
Then, I downloaded an official Windows 11 ISO and execute the DISM command with source option but it keeps telling that can't find a valid source.

I also tried to repair Windows 11 in place but after some reboots it raises me "Installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during MIGRATE_DATA operation" error.

What can I try now ?

Thanks in advance

CoPilot said this.....



That error—SAFE_OS phase with an error during MIGRATE_DATA—is a classic thorn in the side of in-place upgrades. It typically signals trouble during the migration of user data, and it's often tied to:

Common Root Causes​

• Corrupted system files or installation media
• Driver conflicts, especially chipset or storage drivers
• Disk integrity issues (bad sectors, misaligned partitions)
• Third-party software interference (encryption tools, antivirus, etc.)
• Insufficient disk space or permission issues

Given your methodical style, James, here’s a tailored approach to tackle it:

---

Step-by-Step Fix Strategy​

1.​

Microsoft’s SetupDiag tool can pinpoint the exact failure. It parses setuperr.log and setupact.log for clues. You’ll want to run it after the failed upgrade attempt.

2.​

Run these in elevated PowerShell:


sfc /scannow<br>DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth<br>

Then check CBS.log and DISM.log for lingering corruption.

3.​

• Disable all non-Microsoft services via msconfig
• Uninstall third-party antivirus, encryption tools, or firewall software
• Disconnect from the internet during upgrade
• Use a fresh ISO via Media Creation Tool

4.​

Run:


chkdsk C: /scan<br>

If errors are found, follow up with:


chkdsk C: /f /r<br>

(Will require reboot)

5.​

Especially:

• Chipset
• Storage controller
• USB
• Graphics

Use manufacturer sites—not Windows Update—for the latest versions.

6.​

Sometimes hidden recovery or OEM partitions interfere. You can inspect with:


Get-Partition<br>

Or use diskpart to list and inspect volumes.

---

Pro Tip​

If you’re running any legacy services (like VeraCrypt, custom bootloaders, or VT-d virtualization), disable or uninstall them temporarily. One user resolved this by decrypting their system volume and disabling VT-d in BIOS.






If you want, I can help you build a modular PowerShell script to automate pre-upgrade checks and cleanup. Would that be useful?

Please find attached logs from SetupDiag.
It can be helpful to have a PS script to run before repair to be sure that everything is ok

So we know what we are dealing with, it would be of great benefit to us if you would fill out your system specs in your user profile on this forum.
Be sure to include make/model of your device.

glasskuter said:

So we know what we are dealing with, it would be of great benefit to us if you would fill out your system specs in your user profile on this forum.
Be sure to include make/model of your device.

Click to expand...

It's a custom one. I've filled as much details as I can. Feel free to ask anything that might help.
I also noticed that this thread has been moved to the "network" section but I think it's more a "restoring windows" matter. Internet is not working since the DNS Client service can't start and it's related to a corrupted installation (i suppose :))

pivsxii said:

Internet is not working since the DNS Client can't start and it's related to a corrupted installation (i suppose :))

Click to expand...

pivsxii said:

last saturday I updated my Windows 11 Home through windows Update and the next day my PC is not able to resolve DNS

Click to expand...

Don't suppose. At present, Do you have good working internet connection on other devices in your network? You say this all started with an update but you do not say which update. I'm about to write you a book here as I do not know what experience you have so you may already know some of it.

Starting at the beginning, here's The way I see the series of events from the info you provided. Correct me if I am wrong.

1.updated Windows 11 Home through windows Update on Saturday, I am assuming you had no DNS issues prior to the update nor immediately following the update. Correct?

2. The next day you had a DNS issue– IMO at that point, I would first have troubleshooted the DNS issue not as being a windows issue but a router/internet issue since I had no DNS problems the night before. ( error 5 indicates a lack of sufficient user permissions to perform an action. Commands should have been run as administrator)

3.To fix DNS you attempted an DISM using an iso which failed due to invalid source file.

4. You did an in-place upgrade which failed. (I am assuming using the same iso you used for the DISM)
According to the logs, the upgrade failure was 0x8007042B, 0x2000D.

5. Error 0x8007042B, 0x2000D-While not all inclusive, this failure most often (but not always) indicates a corrupted user account with appdata being prominent.

It won’t do any good running the in-place upgrade using another account as the upgrade process will still see the same problems in your account when it goes to migrate user data. Neither will DISM or SFC fix a user account.

I had the same error when I upgraded to 24h2. I spent days chasing my tail with it and ended up doing a clean install. IMO You can handle this one of 2 ways. I suggest doing option #2 since using option 1 still has an outside chance of not fixing your problems.

MAKE A IMAGE OF YOUR SYSTEM NO MATTER WHICH WAY YOU CHOOSE TO GO.

Prep For both options: If you are currently using a LOCAL account OR a MS account that is NOT syncing to Onedrive - Copy all your files from the old account to external media. Doing this prevents any permission errors when files are accessed from new account. If you are currently using a MS account and are syncing your files to Onedrive they will be imported automatically later. If they are not you can manually move them into your user folders.

Option 1- Create a new LOCAL account. Make sure you assign it as administrator.

Restart and login to new account and delete your old account. If your old account was a MS account syncing to Onedrive, change the local account to a MS account, turn on sync, and all your files should show up. If your old account was not synced to Onedrive, you copy them from your external media into the new account.

You will have to redo all settings in this new account as well as re-install any apps that did not originally install for all users.

Option 2 – Bite the bullet, do a clean install. It’s a lot of work but you know you are 100% clean, both Windows and your user account.
To make sure there is no problem with the iso, download a new iso here and create installation media. Scroll down to Download Windows 11 Disk Image.

Download Windows 11

Clean install tutorial Clean Install Windows 11

If you built this machine yourself you already know the following but I am including this information in case you do not know.
While Windows Update will install drivers for you, If it was me, I would not want windows update to install nor maintain my drivers on a custom-built machine. I would want MSI's custom drivers and use MSI Center for maintaining my drivers. I would disable including drivers with windows update.

Replacing Microsoft's generic drivers with MSI-specific ones during a clean Windows installation is a standard process that involves installing MSI-provided drivers after Windows has been installed. The exception is if a critical storage driver is missing and you do not see your drive during install, which requires you to manually load it during the Windows setup.
When you’re doing a clean install of Windows, MSI (or any motherboard/system) drivers don’t usually get installed automatically beyond the basics. Here’s the proper sequence for installing MSI drivers during/after a clean install:

• Before beginning clean install, download MSI drivers from MSI site from another machine if you can not access yours. Extract them to a usb drive. Go HERE, enter your motherboard model, and download:
  • Chipset drivers
  • Intel/AMD Management Engine Interface (if listed)
  • LAN / WLAN drivers
  • Audio driver
  • Graphics driver (from NVIDIA/AMD/Intel site is better than MSI’s copy)
  • Any utilities you plan to use (Dragon Center, Nahimic, etc.)
• Note- Windows Setup doesn’t normally let you install MSI drivers directly during install. The only exception is if Windows doesn’t see your storage drive(common with RAID or certain NVMe setups). In that case:
  • When Windows asks “Where do you want to install Windows?”, click Load Driver. and point it to the extracted folder on your usb drive
  • Once loaded, your drive will appear and the install can continue.

If Windows sees your SSD/HDD normally, you don’t need to add drivers during setup.

Once Windows is installed and you’re at the desktop:

1. Chipset driver first → This sets up proper communication between CPU, RAM, and system devices.
2. Management Engine / SMBus / Serial IO (if available).
3. Storage (RST/NVMe/RAID) driver if your board uses it.
4. LAN or WLAN driver → Get internet access.
5. Windows Update → Let it run once to grab baseline drivers.
6. Graphics driver (from NVIDIA/AMD/Intel official site).
7. Audio driver (Realtek/Nahimic if MSI provides).
8. Other utilities (Dragon Center/MSI Center, RGB software, hotkey drivers for laptops, etc.).

After everything is installed, make a system image so you don’t need to repeat all this in the future.

---

pivsxii said:

• DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

tells me that my image is repairable.
it keeps telling that can't find a valid source.

Click to expand...

This is a common problem with 24H2, where DISM with /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth parameters, also fails with error message claiming no sources can be found. The only solution, is a new install of Windows 11 24H2.

Unfortunately, scanhealth on 24H2, commonly ends up being a fail, after a patch-Tuesday update.

Not knowing if this would continue happening or not, back in June, 2025, I have been wondering if I should have stayed with 23H2 on my daily-driver.

24H2 installation went well on June 10, 2025 on my daily-driver, but things went bad after the July, 2025 patch-Tuesday, where I was forced to reinstall 24H2.
But, for the August, 2025 patch-Tuesday, and the September, 2025 patch-Tuesday updates, the restorehealth was successful. CBS claimed multiple files were missing from the component store.

Where did the files go? I didn't delete them! It looks more like Windows Update simply didn't add files to the component store.

glasskuter said:

Don't suppose. At present, Do you have good working internet connection on other devices in your network? You say this all started with an update but you do not say which update. I'm about to write you a book here as I do not know what experience you have so you may already know some of it.

Starting at the beginning, here's The way I see the series of events from the info you provided. Correct me if I am wrong.

1.updated Windows 11 Home through windows Update on Saturday, I am assuming you had no DNS issues prior to the update nor immediately following the update. Correct?

Click to expand...

Yes. I came back home from 2 months in another place and when I turned on, Windows Updates told me to restart for a patch. There were 2 updates at the same time:

• KB5064401 (.NET framework related)
• KB5064081 (August cumulative update)

After the first reboot, PC worked flawlessy as I updated other apps (Playnite, Steam, Epic Store..)

glasskuter said:

2. The next day you had a DNS issue– IMO at that point, I would first have troubleshooted the DNS issue not as being a windows issue but a router/internet issue since I had no DNS problems the night before. ( error 5 indicates a lack of sufficient user permissions to perform an action. Commands should have been run as administrator)

Click to expand...

Ye the first thing I did was to reboot my router but there were two strange synthoms:

• all of my other devices were working and instead of a generic "No internet connection", the network symbol on my PC was blinking
• no IP was associated even if I have a static IP in my LAN managed by my Router

I also managed to ping external sites or even do a nslookup to them, but no browsing.

glasskuter said:

3.To fix DNS you attempted an DISM using an iso which failed due to invalid source file.

Click to expand...

I first tried a generic sfc /scannow.
After that I tried an in place restore with an image downloaded from Microsoft site by another PC and no luck
Eventually I tried the DISM update with an ISO just downloaded from MS site

glasskuter said:

4. You did an in-place upgrade which failed. (I am assuming using the same iso you used for the DISM)
According to the logs, the upgrade failure was 0x8007042B, 0x2000D.

Click to expand...

I tried multiple times with the same outcome unfortunately

glasskuter said:

5. Error 0x8007042B, 0x2000D-While not all inclusive, this failure most often (but not always) indicates a corrupted user account with appdata being prominent.

Click to expand...

Ye something is ofc corrupted since other services are KO such as Windows Defender (it too fails with error 5)

glasskuter said:

It won’t do any good running the in-place upgrade using another account as the upgrade process will still see the same problems in your account when it goes to migrate user data. Neither will DISM or SFC fix a user account.

I had the same error when I upgraded to 24h2. I spent days chasing my tail with it and ended up doing a clean install. IMO You can handle this one of 2 ways. I suggest doing option #2 since using option 1 still has an outside chance of not fixing your problems.

MAKE A IMAGE OF YOUR SYSTEM NO MATTER WHICH WAY YOU CHOOSE TO GO.

Prep For both options: If you are currently using a LOCAL account OR a MS account that is NOT syncing to Onedrive - Copy all your files from the old account to external media. Doing this prevents any permission errors when files are accessed from new account. If you are currently using a MS account and are syncing your files to Onedrive they will be imported automatically later. If they are not you can manually move them into your user folders.

Click to expand...

Luckily my data are all stored on other drives. I only use C: for Windows and programs but thank you for the advice

glasskuter said:

Option 1- Create a new LOCAL account. Make sure you assign it as administrator.

Restart and login to new account and delete your old account. If your old account was a MS account syncing to Onedrive, change the local account to a MS account, turn on sync, and all your files should show up. If your old account was not synced to Onedrive, you copy them from your external media into the new account.

You will have to redo all settings in this new account as well as re-install any apps that did not originally install for all users.

Option 2 – Bite the bullet, do a clean install. It’s a lot of work but you know you are 100% clean, both Windows and your user account.
To make sure there is no problem with the iso, download a new iso here and create installation media. Scroll down to Download Windows 11 Disk Image.

Download Windows 11

Clean install tutorial Clean Install Windows 11

Click to expand...

I think I'll give a new account a try just to know, but I assume that after 2/3 years it can be useful to have a fresh installation.
I only need to make a list of all the the programs and find the courage to press the install :)

glasskuter said:

If you built this machine yourself you already know the following but I am including this information in case you do not know.
While Windows Update will install drivers for you, If it was me, I would not want windows update to install nor maintain my drivers on a custom-built machine. I would want MSI's custom drivers and use MSI Center for maintaining my drivers. I would disable including drivers with windows update.

Enable or Disable Include Drivers with Windows Updates in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable including drivers with Windows Updates in Windows 10 and Windows 11. Windows Update will include drivers when available in Windows 11 by default. You can enable the Do not include drivers with Windows Updates policy to not include drivers...

www.elevenforum.com

Replacing Microsoft's generic drivers with MSI-specific ones during a clean Windows installation is a standard process that involves installing MSI-provided drivers after Windows has been installed. The exception is if a critical storage driver is missing and you do not see your drive during install, which requires you to manually load it during the Windows setup.
When you’re doing a clean install of Windows, MSI (or any motherboard/system) drivers don’t usually get installed automatically beyond the basics. Here’s the proper sequence for installing MSI drivers during/after a clean install:

• Before beginning clean install, download MSI drivers from MSI site from another machine if you can not access yours. Extract them to a usb drive. Go HERE, enter your motherboard model, and download:
  • Chipset drivers
  • Intel/AMD Management Engine Interface (if listed)
  • LAN / WLAN drivers
  • Audio driver
  • Graphics driver (from NVIDIA/AMD/Intel site is better than MSI’s copy)
  • Any utilities you plan to use (Dragon Center, Nahimic, etc.)
• Note- Windows Setup doesn’t normally let you install MSI drivers directly during install. The only exception is if Windows doesn’t see your storage drive(common with RAID or certain NVMe setups). In that case:
  • When Windows asks “Where do you want to install Windows?”, click Load Driver. and point it to the extracted folder on your usb drive
  • Once loaded, your drive will appear and the install can continue.

If Windows sees your SSD/HDD normally, you don’t need to add drivers during setup.

Once Windows is installed and you’re at the desktop:

1. Chipset driver first → This sets up proper communication between CPU, RAM, and system devices.
2. Management Engine / SMBus / Serial IO (if available).
3. Storage (RST/NVMe/RAID) driver if your board uses it.
4. LAN or WLAN driver → Get internet access.
5. Windows Update → Let it run once to grab baseline drivers.
6. Graphics driver (from NVIDIA/AMD/Intel official site).
7. Audio driver (Realtek/Nahimic if MSI provides).
8. Other utilities (Dragon Center/MSI Center, RGB software, hotkey drivers for laptops, etc.).

After everything is installed, make a system image so you don’t need to repeat all this in the future.

---

Click to expand...

Yes I always install driver directly from MSI after the first installation but thank you for pointing out and thank you for the support ofc!

flush your DNS’s cache
Most DNS clients cache the results of name resolution requests. This speeds up name resolution if multiple lookups are done to the same address, such as is common when browsing the web.

Sometimes a bad DNS entry will be cached and you will need to either flush the DNS cache to get rid of it.


Open a command prompt....from the Start menu, select Run > In the box/"open field", enter cmd.exe

enter ipconfig /flushdns press 'enter'

It's possible that the drive you have Windows 11 on, is faulty. I'm suspicious of a faulty drive at this point. Multiple functions broken in Windows, suddenly.
SSDs tend to fail like this with hardly any warning!
Meaning you likely get symptoms of Windows file corruption, or SSD degradation, before you discover the SMART being suspicious.

I don't know if Crucial MX500s are prone to failure like this or not, but the MX500s have a known problem with life percentage plunging rapidly. No corruption with the Crucial MX500 that I had, but the reported life left, was down to 82 percent in less than a whole year.

This looks like a bad drive, unless it's because of malware.

Yes jaycee's idea of flushing dns is a good one.

Except that you cannot flush the DNS cache if the DNS service isn't running.


versus

If you keep having a permissions issue, and the DNS Client service keeps failing, then I suspect malware.
The permissions issue reminds me of a suspicious incident on a Vista PC, (socket AM2, Athlon X2 4000+ DDR2 SDRAM) where the installer failed with an error with reason that it can't open a registry entry and it looked like the registry entry had messed up permissions, and I think it was after the person, who owned the PC, was going to random web sites. (2009 or 2010)

First off, I never get that error message, normally, in the case of that installer error incident, so I was thinking an infection from some bad web site.

I already tried a scan with malware bytes and Windows Defender but nothing was found.
I just tried a scan with Crystal Disk and my ADATA NVME is at 81% but still "Good" for the tool. The other three are good aswell

Reinstalled a fresh copy and everthing is fine now. Really dunno what happened to my account..

pivsxii said:

einstalled a fresh copy and everthing is fine now

Click to expand...

Yep. Sometimes it takes a swift kick in its rear end...HARD. May I suggest that you start occasionally making images of your system. Doing so can save your bacon. I can image my system drive in 4 minutes and restore an image in 5.I have tons of data on my data drive and it's image takes about 15 min. IMO a backup plan is the most important thing one can do to protect themselves as well as save a lot of time and effort....and headache

glasskuter said:

Yep. Sometimes it takes a swift kick in its rear end...HARD. May I suggest that you start occasionally making images of your system. Doing so can save your bacon. I can image my system drive in 4 minutes and restore an image in 5.I have tons of data on my data drive and it's image takes about 15 min. IMO a backup plan is the most important thing one can do to protect themselves as well as save a lot of time and effort....and headache

Click to expand...

Ye after all the apps and drivers installation I made an image with Rescuezilla and backup it on my NAS.
Hope I don't need it btw :)

Thank you all for the support. Much appreciated