Solved Fixing Win11 without reformat/reinstall?

wpcoe · Jan 3, 2026

Ghot said:
Yes, but not when 'booting' from the USB stick.

Well, dang.

Ghot said:
You can clean install Windows 11 when booting from a USB stick.

Clean Install Windows 11

This tutorial will show you step by step on how to clean install Windows 11 at boot on your PC with or without an Internet connection and setup with a local account or Microsoft account. Windows 11 has all the power and security of Windows 10 with a redesigned and refreshed look. It also comes...

www.elevenforum.com

Double dang. I guess that's what I'll be doing this evening.

zbook · Jan 3, 2026

Please boot to the BIOS > check menu settings for RAID / ACHI > temporarily modify to AHCI > report findings

Whenever possible take pictures > post images or share links

JLArranz · Jan 3, 2026

It all sounds a lot to hw disk or RAM problems. The easiest to do is a surface test to the disk. It's a laptop which I have no experience with, in a desktop I'd detach RAM modules trying to isolate a bad one. I think your issue isn't "bad luck with bits statistics". Even stable computers do "reverse bits", say one per 10^15 or such things, if one of those "bad lotteries" falls in something critical it can cause a big problem although normally it's a blue screen etc in the worst case. My MiniPC has had a bad age this spring with several random memory dumps, but since months ago it's okay. I don't mean that, I think you have a permanently bad and unusable component. The most similar I've experienced is in Windows 95 b/c some mobo solderings were touching the chassis. It was stable in DOS but the Windows installs lasted ten days or so. It wasn't so bad the times I've had defective RAM. To summarize a complex subject I've always been extremely lucky with my disks.

zbook · Jan 3, 2026

When available please update the progress with the steps in posts #17 and #22.

wpcoe · Jan 3, 2026

zbook said:
Please boot to the BIOS > check menu settings for RAID / ACHI > temporarily modify to AHCI > report findings

Whenever possible take pictures > post images or share links

I don't see anything like that in the BIOS/UEFI screens:

Opening screen "Dashboard":

The entirety of the Advanced settings:

Boot settings:

wpcoe · Jan 3, 2026

zbook said:
When available please update the progress with the steps in posts #17 and #22.

Darn. Somehow totally skipped over post 17. If/when I can boot again, I'll revisit post 17.

Spunk · Jan 3, 2026

You can have several Anti-Virus apps on computer, but only the last one installed will be Active. Each Anti-Virus disables Windows Security and any other AV previously installed. (ie) if you had Comodo AV installed, it disabled Windows Security, If you install Avast, it Disables Comodo. These apps do this to avoid conflicts.
Just uninstalling the AV app in Settings does not fully Remove it. To fully remove it, you have use the manufactures Clean or Uninstall program.
This may solve your problem, you can always install One or the Other AV app. if you like but not both. If you uninstall all 3rd party AV security apps, Windows Security (Defender) will re-enable, which is all you need.

wpcoe · Jan 3, 2026

Spunk said:
You can have several Anti-Virus apps on computer, but only the last one installed will be Active. Each Anti-Virus disables Windows Security and any other AV previously installed. (ie) if you had Comodo AV installed, it disabled Windows Security, If you install Avast, it Disables Comodo. These apps do this to avoid conflicts.
Just uninstalling the AV app in Settings does not fully Remove it. To fully remove it, you have use the manufactures Clean or Uninstall program.
This may solve your problem, you can always install One or the Other AV app. if you like but not both. If you uninstall all 3rd party AV security apps, Windows Security (Defender) will re-enable, which is all you need.

I did use AvastClean to remove Avast. I didn't know of any such "clean remover" for Comodo, but honestly I didn't look today. I (incorrectly?) assumed that by disabling all the Comodo services and startup items, and uninstalling it in Windows add/remove programs, it would take Comodo Firewall out of the equation. (I did not have Comodo Antivirus installed.)

I'm also not a guy with an abundance of patience. I'll wait a little while to see if anybody appears with a magic potion to let me boot up again, but if not, I'll go nuclear and boot with the bootable USB drive I just made with Rufus for Win11 x64.

Ghot · Jan 3, 2026

wpcoe said:
I didn't know of any such "clean remover" for Comodo

Comodo Uninstaller Tool Use, Internet Security, Comodo Removal Tool | COMODO

Comodo Uninstaller Tool page is a tutorial on how to search find and remove Comodo Internet Security, Firewall, or Antivirus products. Click here to find a guidance about this.

help.comodo.com

JLArranz · Jan 3, 2026

At the very least I'd do a surface test.

wpcoe · Jan 3, 2026

JLArranz said:
At the very least I'd do a surface test.

I've got to be able to boot first, no?

JLArranz · Jan 3, 2026

wpcoe said:
I've got to be able to boot first, no?

You can do it from a bootable USB stick, using the one boot menu the laptop doesn't try to boot from the main disk. I have here a file called

USBbootSetup-SeaToolsBootable.zip

SeaTools is the name of the tool.

zbook · Jan 3, 2026

wpcoe said:
I don't see anything like that in the BIOS/UEFI screens:

Opening screen "Dashboard":
View attachment 158810

The entirety of the Advanced settings:
View attachment 158811

Boot settings:
View attachment 158812

What menu options were seen for storage?

wpcoe · Jan 3, 2026

I decided to just wipe the Windows partition (data is on a separate partition) and do a new install with a bootable Win11 installation thumb drive.

Saw the "Repair" option and chose it:

Advanced options:

Tried Startup Repar. Failed:

Tried System Restore. At least it was able to find a restore point:

It failed and gave me options:

Troubleshoot led to the Advanced Option (see above), so I tried Uninstall Updates. Failed.:

It failed so I went to Command Prompt in Advanced Options and was able to read the HDD partitions and thumb drive. I copied the DumpStack.log to the thumb drive and transferred it to my old computer and am attaching it to this forum post.

It seems like the file structure on the C: drive is intact, but since the computer won't boot, something is wrong with the boot partitions? ~~Is there any way to reconstruct the boot partition(s) and keep everything on the C: partition intact?~~ Based on the time of the file, it was created during one of the several attempts to do an in-place update, but not the one that killed the boot-up ability.

Any idea why bootrec /fixboot access was denied?

It looks like all the partitions are on the drive. Partition 3 is the Windows partition and Partition 4 is the data file partition:

Could the existence of two Recovery partitions be a problem? I'm guessing a second one was created during today's episodes?

zbook · Jan 3, 2026

The dump log did not report 7B.

Avast drivers were present.

Had you found:

srttrail.txt

BIOS menu options under storage

Code:

Dump stack initialized at UTC: 2026/01/03 22:13:49, local time: 2026/01/03 16:13:49.
#BugCheckCode 0x0000000000000139
#BugCheckP1 0x000000000000001D
#BugCheckP2 0xFFFFFC8F45C1DF00
#BugCheckP3 0xFFFFFC8F45C1DE58
#BugCheckP4 0x0000000000000000

Code:

Calling aswSP secondary callback.
Return from aswSP secondary callback.
Writing aswSP secondary callback data.
Writing aswSP secondary callback data done.

wpcoe · Jan 3, 2026

zbook said:
The dump log did not report 7B.

My mind is spinning. Remind me what 7B is again, and why it could/should be in the dump log?

zbook said:
Had you found:

srttrail.txt

Do you know were srtrail.txt would be? i.e. What directory/folder?

zbook said:
BIOS menu options under storage

Clicking on Storage only gives:

zbook · Jan 3, 2026

wpcoe said:
It’s gone from bad to worse.

I now cannot boot. Onscreen message:

”Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart. We’ restart for you.” [spoiler alert: it doesn’t]

“Stop code: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE (0x7B)”

[edited to add, now that I've got my old computer up & running:]

These are my steps to disabling my computer:

- uninstalled Avast Antivirus (using Avast Clear)
- rebooted
- uninstalled Comodo Firewall (using Windows add/remove programs)
- disabled all non-Microsoft services (via msconfig)
- disabled all startup items in Task Scheduler
- rebooted (or, tried to...)

I did do something that I hadn't done prior: the second reboot was prior to trying to mount the .ISO file to do an in-place update. My rationale: while I had disabled items in Task Manager > Startup, those items were, in fact, still running, so I rebooted thinking maybe if any of those items were the problem, they would not be after a reboot. (Mistake???)

I booted into BIOS/UEFI on the ASUS notebook to make sure the SSD is detected and set as the boot device. It is.

Can I do an in-place update if I make a win11 x64 boot USB thumb drive (on my old computer) and boot off of it (in the new ASUS computer)?

My mind is spinning. Remind me what 7B is again, and why it could/should be in the dump log?

From the earlier report:

Code:

“Stop code: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE (0x7B)”

Do you know were srtrail.txt would be? i.e. What directory/folder?

c:\windows\system32\logfiles\srt\srttrail.txt

%windir%\system32\logfiles\srt\srttrail.txt

See if you can find BIOS options similar to this ASUS video:

[Windows 11/10] Troubleshooting - Cannot Find Drives When Installing Windows OS | Official Support | ASUS USA

What were the steps that you made to find and the create the Dump stack text?
(please list each step)

wpcoe · Jan 3, 2026

zbook said:
From the earlier report:

Code:

“Stop code: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE (0x7B)”

Ah. That 7B. No idea what that "boot device" even is .

Looking at the Windows partition I see c:\windows\logs and c:\windows\log directories. The latter is a list of .log files mostly dated 04/26/2025. Nothing dated today. I suspect that is from when ASUS configured the machine, since I didn't buy it until November 2025. The former is a series of directories, most with today's date:

Before I go down that rabbit hole (anticipating nested sub-directories), does any of them pop out as a likely home for a srttrail.txt file?

zbook · Jan 3, 2026

If you're able to perform recurrent startup repairs then you may be able to create a new srttrail.txt.

Had you been able to get these files:

C:\windows\minidump
C:\windows\memory.dmp
setupdiag

See the prior edited thread.

wpcoe · Jan 3, 2026

zbook said:
What menu options were seen for storage?

Sorry. I just saw this message. There is *nothing* about storage in the UEFI/BIOS screens except identifying the drives and setting the boot order.

Solved Fixing Win11 without reformat/reinstall?

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