A serious question for [USER=7009]@softwaremaniac[/USER], as I feel certain I must be missing something, but how can any of those steps be taken if one cannot boot? I suppose one could try the "triple hard power down" option - holding in the power button until the machine turns off, then on the third power up one might get the Choose an option screen, but I'm not even certain about that.
[USER=36383]@sparkymcdook[/USER]: I'm really sorry, but I can't give you "hopeful help" because I believe any hope anyone might try to create will likely end up dashed. A point worth making based on your final observation, "blows my mind how much worse Windows 10 is to troubleshoot start issues," is that this is really unlikely to be a simple start issue. All suggestions are that there is very significant corruption. Any time I see a system where "all the usual utilities" are failing, and miserably, my primary concern is getting a fresh, baseline installation of the latest Windows 10 that can be depended upon. I have a "standard Windows 10 revival script" that includes quite a bit of what you already had done, the last step of which is the "thermonuclear option" of a completely clean reinstall.
I sincerely hope that you may be able to avoid it, and wish you all the luck in the world in working out a solution. I just have my doubts that there is "a fix" waiting to be found.
