I installed Windows 10 on a USB Hard Drive, and everything was working in the first two days....until yesterday.
After I restarted the PC yesterday, out of nowhere, without any hardware or (apparent) software change, it started to display an error (blue screen) saying:
================================================================================================================ RECOVERY Your PC/Device needs to be repaired
The application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.
File: \Windows\system32\winload.exe Error code: 0xc0000102
You'll need to user recovery tools. If you don't have any installation media (like a disc or USB device), contact your PC administrator or PC/Device manufacturer.
Press Enter to try again Press F8 for Startup Settings Press F9 to use a different operating system
================================================================================================================
Every key I press to access some option just refreshes this screen. Nothing different happens.
As a side note, this PC has a fixed SATA HDD, with Windows 10 installed and working (same Windows version, though build is different). Both USB and SATA HDs are MBR disks. (BIOS is old, and it doesn't support GPT) Bios is set to boot from USB HDD first.
After the blue screen, I immediatelly started the PC from a USB installation media, and executed the trivial recovery commands I've executed dozen of times during my IT career:
bootsect /nt60 F: /force /mbr
bootrec /rebuildbcd
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /fixmbr
bcdboot F:\windows /s F:Once this PC has a working Windows 10 in its SATA HDD, I've put this disk offline using diskpart before trying any command. That is only to avoid executing commands in the working SATA HDD.
I work on IT, and I've recovered a lot of PCs (post Windows Vista) with these commands, so for me, it would just be another sure-win case. Little I knew, though!
I've spent hours trying to make this PC to boot from USB HDD, but everything I do just seems not to cause any effect.
Now the details.
Before starting, F: is the drive letter assigned to the USB drive that has Windows folder structure (Windows, users, Program Files, etc). That is, Windows is installed there.
First, a small recap of what commands yielded success: (commands will but put between double quotes to keep them apart from their notes)
"bcdedit" works, and shows two entries: "Windows boot manager" and "Windows 10" (both "device" and "osdevice" attributes of "Windows 10" entry have the correct drive letter where Windows resides inside the drive)
"bootsect /nt60 F: /force /mbr" : boot code update successfully. No problem here
"bootrec /rebuildbcd" : 0 installations found. After deleting entire BOOT folder, this command found 1 installation (in F: drive, the correct one), and I chose YES to add it, that gave me a success message.
"bootrec /fixboot" : it gives me an "Access Denied" error. When I execute "bootsect /nt60 F: /force /mbr", and immediatelly try the fixboot command again, it works. Oddly though, as soon as I issue a simple (and read-only, as fas as I'm aware) BCDEDIT, fixboot starts giving me "Access Denied" again.
"bootrec /fixmbr" : operation completed successfully, no errors here.
bcdboot F:\windows /s F: (files copied successfully)
Only to make sure, I went to system32 folder, and saw winload.exe (winload.exe, not winload.efi, as I'm using an MBR disk on a (legacy) BIOS system) was there. Its properties (version, for example, same as OS build) were readable, indicating the file wasn't corrupt. That seemed very weird, so it started to intriguing me.
After removing the USB installation media, and restart the machine, the same 0xc0000102 error appeared. Same screen, same messages, same all. I've disabled the fixed HDD, and executed the recovery commands again, same 0xc0000102 error screen.
I then went to another computer (different hardware, ALSO BIOS-based, no UEFI....), plugged the USB HDD there, and this PC COULD BOOT from USB, without any problem, errors, or warning. Windows started, I could logon, no warning or error. This PC also has a fixed SATA HDD with a working Windows installation.
Knowing the USB HDD was bootable, I returned to the original computer, and tried booting it again, but no success. Same 0xc0000102 screen.
After this, I've enabled the SATA HDD in BIOS, and tried to boot from it, no problem. Windows booted successfully. I then shut down the PC, and tried booting from USB HDD again, no suceess, same 0xc0000102 screen.
I turned the PC off, removed power cord from wall outlet, pressed the power button (to remove any internal energy), and after 1 hour, I turned the PC back on (plugged power cord to wall outlet, etc).
Same problem.
Running out of ideas, I've reset BIOS to defaults: no success, same results. (I did it even though nothing in BIOS had been changed between the last successful USB boot and the first appearance of the problem).
I started the machine from SATA HDD, created a Hyper-V Virtual Machine, and started it from the physical USB HDD. It booted successfully, no problems.
Back to virtual machine, without any hope, I've ran these two commands on Windows (running from USB HDD):
DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth sfc /scannow
DISM command gave Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.
SFC command indicated SOME FILES WERE CORRUPTED.
After the execution is finished, the original machine was started from USB HDD, recovery commands were run again, but no succeess.
The only diffence is now, only an empty blue screen appears, same color as before, but with no text.
Putting the USB HDD in the virtual machine, it boots successfully, no errors or warnings.
I executed DISM and SFC commands (same as before), and this time, no error in both commands.
"sfc /scannow" gave me "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations." and "DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth" gave me "The restore operation completed successfully. The operation completed successfully."
I'd like ideas to put THIS specific installation back working in this specific PC, so I'm not interested in changing hardware or formatting this disk.
Thanks!
Reset to default
