Stuck in startup repair boot loop, C drive is in RAW

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archz2

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May 6, 2019
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I have Acer Nitro 5 AN515-52 laptop running 64 bit windows 10 version 21H2 (Build 19044.1706). I checked the windows version 4 weeks ago and not sure that it's the same or not. I haven't done any updates since then.


When I started my laptop today, I saw a BSOD, then it went into an automatic startup repair loop. I ran chkdsk in the advanced recovery mode and it found no errors. After restarting my laptop, it again went into the same startup repair loop. After starting again, then seeing the sign in screen, after entering the password, windows froze and the laptop restarted. I entered the login password again, then my desktop screen came, then again the laptop froze. Again the cycle of startup repair started. After multiple attempts, I was able to login into windows again. I ran the DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth command in admin cmd prompt and kept getting the error that I don't have a write permission to a temp folder in c:/users/data..something like that. I forgot to take a photograph of that. Now I am stuck again in the boot loop. In the system recovery, after running the disk part and list vol commands, now I am seeing that my C drive is in RAW file format. What should I do to resolve this issue?

I know that formatting c drive will resolve the trouble but that will also mean that I'll have to spend hours installing windows and all my software from scratch.

1656753010498.png

My C drive is an nvme SSD in which I have installed all my software and my D drive is a SATA hard drive where I keep all my work files.
 
I downloaded tools from here.
Release Win10XPE_2022-01-07 Package · ChrisRfr/Win10XPE

and created a bootable USB drive of Win10XPE from it.

I can access all files of my C drive.
1656760693142.png


I checked the file system and it shows as NTFS.

1656760711908.png


I ran crystal disk info and here are the results.

1656760728936.png

But for some weird reason, the disk is listed as RAW format as shown in the screenshot in the original post.
 
First, make sure you have a valid backup of your Drive.


Step 1. Click on Start, then type: cmd and hit Enter.

Step 2. Right-click on cmd and then click on "Run As Administrator".

Step 3. Type "Diskpart" and then hit Enter.

Step 4. Type C: /FS :NTFS and hit Enter.

SOURCE
 
Okay the partition got detected as NFTS again. I didn't do anything to make it happen. Just restarted my laptop. It has two hard drives. One is the SSD, C partition (it had windows and all software installations). Another one is 930GB SATA hard drive with all my work files.

I eventually created an image of my C partition using Macrium Reflect PE environment. Everything went fine. For some unknown reason, the image was of approximately 100gb in size whereas my C partition was occupied upto almost 175 GB.

Then I booted using the windows 10 USB and deleted all the partitions of the C drive during the installation menu that asks for the location of windows 10. Then I chose the newly formatted C partition to install windows.
The installation went fine. I got to the desktop wallpaper screens and icons. Then I booted using Macrium and restored using the image file.
After I restarted my laptop. I got this error.

1656852356421.png


After pressing enter, I got this.
1656852372688.png





Then I checked in the boot menu of my BIOS. To my surprise, my SSD was not listed in the boot menu. Don’t know why.

1656852390126.png


Then I booted using Win 10 USB, and ran sfc scannow. I also ran DISM, trying to restore the image from the official windows files present on the usb drive and got these results.

1656852415812.png



Upon checking the volume information, I got this.
1656852429063.png


I also tried to fix the bcd using the following commands.
bcdboot c:\Windows /s Z: /f ALL

The letter Z was assigned to the 100mb ESP partition on the D drive
Now this 100mb partition is present on my D drive (SATA).
The bcd fixing went well. I got the message ‘Boot files successfully created’

Unfortunately I didn’t click a photograph of the result.
Now I booted again in windows and I am seeing this result.

1656852443310.png

After pressing enter, I got this.
1656852459394.png



Now I am stuck and absolutely clueless about my next step. Please advise. Startup repair from windows bootable usb fails to repair startup without any error log.
 
archz2 said:
For some unknown reason, the image was of approximately 100gb in size whereas my C partition was occupied upto almost 175 GB.
Click to expand...
This is normal.
archz2 said:
I eventually created an image of my C partition using Macrium Reflect PE environment.
Click to expand...
Good, with this at least you can browse and recover your personal files with Macrium.

Boot again with Macrium and use the Fix Windows boot problems option.
Fix Windows boot problems using Macrium rescue media
 
Thanks xrobwx71. Actually before reading your post, I clean installed windows on my SSD and then installed all software from scratch. I am no more getting startup repair issue.
 
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