Solved No options in recovery mode except troubleshoot and turn pc off

ixzing · Nov 16, 2022

Long story short, I my pc had a recovery mode boot loop and I usually just do system restore. The third time i did it, it took over 24 hours and still didn’t finish so held my power button down and turned it off. Then I got a BSOD with the error being pci.sys. My dad fiddled with my pc and made the error into BSOD winload.efi and I was trying to fix it. I looked up a couple YouTube videos and I got a usb which had windows 11 on it and plugged it in. I followed the command prompt steps and stuff but most of them didn’t do anything. But, I watched this one video followed it’s steps (some didn’t work like in the video) and it shows up with just the options troubleshoot and turn off the computer. And worst thing is, in start up repair, the log files are blank! I have no clue what to do. I really want to restore my PC otherwise my parents would kill me. Please help me, please.

SIW2 · Nov 16, 2022

I suggest you take a look with boot media that has explorer and the ability to take screenshots, and from which you can have a look at the disks with diskpart and/or 3rd party programs. Then you can post them up here so we can see what is going on.

It is also possible to attempt fixes to file corruption with commands.

you havent filled in the specs so we dont know what your hardware is.

ixzing · Nov 17, 2022

Thanks for the reply I have school at the moment, so I’ll tell you in around 7-8 hours when I’m back home. Thanks!

spapakons · Nov 17, 2022

If Windows was moving system files around in order to reinstall and it was interrupted most probably you cannot just repair it. You must reinstall Windows booting from a USB flash drive (or DVD) but WITHOUT formatting the disk. Just click on the larger partition and proceed without any changes to the disk. This will save any previous data in Windows.old folder, as the warning message that appears tells you. Proceed. After Windows is installed successfully and you are through creating the user account, you can find all your data at the Windows.old (or Windows.old.001 etc) folder in the Users subfolder, username subfolder. The first time you should see a message that you don't have the appropriate access rights, but after several seconds it will eventually grant you access to the contents. You have then to reinstall any applications, such as Office, VLC etc, but at least you have a good chance to save your data. To fully restore Firefox or Chrome data, including addons, bookmarks, passwords etc, go at Control Panel, Explorer Settings and make sure you have enabled to show hidden files and extensions. Then go to the subfolder AppData and you should see three folders, Local, LocalLow and Roaming. Copy from each folder the Mozilla (or Google) folder to the respective subfolder of the new user. Also copy the Mozilla (or Google) folder from C:\Windows.old\ProgramData to C:\ProgramData and from C:\Windows.old\Program Files to C:\Program Files (same for x86). After making sure you have copied all folders to the respective place of the new installation, download and install Firefox/Chrome. It should detect the folders and "upgrade" giving you access to your old data.

FreeBooter · Nov 17, 2022

In this video, i will guide on how to Fix Winload.efi is Missing or Contains Errors Message.

spapakons · Nov 17, 2022

This is only if Windows is OK but the boot files are corrupted and cannot load Windows. If it works OK, otherwise see my earlier post.

tbmljk · Nov 17, 2022

Check disk management. You might have 2 backup partitions and your current os is pointing to the wrong backup partition.

ixzing · Nov 17, 2022

spapakons said:
If Windows was moving system files around in order to reinstall and it was interrupted most probably you cannot just repair it. You must reinstall Windows booting from a USB flash drive (or DVD) but WITHOUT formatting the disk. Just click on the larger partition and proceed without any changes to the disk. This will save any previous data in Windows.old folder, as the warning message that appears tells you. Proceed. After Windows is installed successfully and you are through creating the user account, you can find all your data at the Windows.old (or Windows.old.001 etc) folder in the Users subfolder, username subfolder. The first time you should see a message that you don't have the appropriate access rights, but after several seconds it will eventually grant you access to the contents. You have then to reinstall any applications, such as Office, VLC etc, but at least you have a good chance to save your data. To fully restore Firefox or Chrome data, including addons, bookmarks, passwords etc, go at Control Panel, Explorer Settings and make sure you have enabled to show hidden files and extensions. Then go to the subfolder AppData and you should see three folders, Local, LocalLow and Roaming. Copy from each folder the Mozilla (or Google) folder to the respective subfolder of the new user. Also copy the Mozilla (or Google) folder from C:\Windows.old\ProgramData to C:\ProgramData and from C:\Windows.old\Program Files to C:\Program Files (same for x86). After making sure you have copied all folders to the respective place of the new installation, download and install Firefox/Chrome. It should detect the folders and "upgrade" giving you access to your old data.

Thanks for the heads up, I already have a usb with windows 11 media thingy, I already had it when I was trying to fix the winload.efi error. I would need help on how to do this step by step like how do I select the larger partition could you please guide me?

spapakons · Nov 17, 2022

When you boot the USB you should see the option to install Windows 11 now. After that you see the available disks and partitions. If you have a single disk you will see it is divided in areas, called partitions. The other partitions are too small (less than 1GB each) and don't fit Windows. Only one is several GB (unless you also have a data or recovery partition). The first large partition (if you have two or more) is usually the one with Windows on. Click on it and then click next. You see a warning it already has Windows and if you proceed it will be copied to Windows.old Continue anyway.

PS: The first screen when you boot from the Windows USB has "Repair your computer" at bottom left. Thy that before reinstalling. Try the Startup Repair.

ixzing · Nov 17, 2022

So do I go through with the windows download when I boot up the USB?

spapakons · Nov 17, 2022

Create the USB flash drive at another computer and use that to boot (start) your computer.

SIW2 · Nov 17, 2022

You can have a look with this

2261v1.iso

extract the iso to usb stick with usb7ice (attached below )

boot it up and have a look.

Can take screenshots with imagine ( link on the desktop) Tools>screen capture

The pe is 64 bit and I didnt bother to incorporate wow because it would be gigantic. It is quite big as it is. Might take a minute to load on a low power system.

SIW2 · Nov 17, 2022

save screenshots onto usb stick.

ixzing · Nov 17, 2022

Thanks for all the replies and I’ve done some digging and well, I think my main drive C: is fully wiped or maybe it’s that it got transferred to my 2nd drive D: because it has 500GB and I think all my files are in there, so which one do I choose? (I used notepad.exe then file Explorer to check my files and saw that C: only has the Windows folder whilst D: is still functioning and has all my games and stuff).

ixzing · Nov 17, 2022

AND my drive that was D: previously is now C: with the name still being DATA in file explorer and my old C: is now D: with the name Windows still

ixzing · Nov 17, 2022

Sorry for like the 3rd edit but there is also a file called recovery.txt in both drives i don’t know if that helps with anything but well, progress.

SIW2 · Nov 17, 2022

dont worry about drive letters. They are an alias for the volumevalue. They can be assigned differently when you are booted into another operating system like winpe.

Are you able to post up something that shows the disks and partitions?

ixzing · Nov 17, 2022

So should I choose drive D:? As it has some of my files? I won’t be able to respond after this one till tomorrow morning or afternoon as I have school and will go to sleep soon.

SIW2 · Nov 17, 2022

choose it for what? How many disks are there in the machine? Is it just the 256gb disk and the 900ish gb disk?

Often the smaller disk is an ssd and the larger one a mechanical disk.

If the operating system was installed on the 256gb disk it is expected there would be several partitions on that disk. Some of which which often will not be automatically assigned letters.

ixzing · Nov 17, 2022

I booted the Windows 11 Media creation and I’m installing it again, which drive/ partition should I download it on? D: or C:
Read the above for info about the drives.