Boot Disk Issues

[Mike McCall]

Wife's machine:

Cloned her HDD to a new WD Black about a month ago. Everything went fine, no issues. Had an opportunity to upgrade her system to a newer AIO, so I grabbed my USB tool kit and ran Fabs. Only then did I find out her user file is corrupted. Didn't repair it, but shut down the machine instead. Nothing appeared to be abnormal.

Attempted to boot the machine later and got a blue screen error:

0xc0000225
Device is inaccessible.

Unable to access recovery partition. Used an installation disc to attempt startup repair: failed. Used Command Prompt to run bootrec commands: failed Tried bootsect /nt60 c: :failed. Said the drive was write protected. Tried using diskpart to clear read only attribute: failed to clear attribute. Diskpart - detail disk shows no read only attribute. But then it also shows:

WDC WD500AZEX-00K3CA0
Disk ID {359C51E0-4584-03A7-7814-670D61D1E900}
Type: SATA
Status: Online
Path: 0
Target: 0
LUN ID: 0
Location Path: PCIROOT (0) #PCI (1100) #ATA (C00T00L00)
Current Read-Only State: No
Read-Only: No
Boot Disk: No
Hibernation File Disk: No
Crashdump Disk: No
Clustered Disk: No

Attached drive externally via USB and am able to access files & folders. Not able to boot.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Sounds obvious, but did you check the condition of the drive?

 

[Mike McCall]

Sounds obvious, but did you check the condition of the drive?

Passes S.M.A.R.T test
Passes short test.

 

[Markverhyden]

500 GB drive? Time to move on, to a new drive. Personally I don't really trust many of those drive software tools. If the drive is misbehaving like that time for a change.

 

[Mike McCall]

It's a new WD Black drive, in service for about a month. Could be a drive failure I suppose, but tests fine and acts more like a significant corruption to me. Don't understand why the repairs I tried have had no effect on the file system at all.

 

[Markverhyden]

In that case maybe it's just a bad case of heart burn. W10 is GPT. Personally I've never tried doing much in the way of repairing GPT volumes. Just been a nuke and pave for non-boot issues like this.

 

[GTP]

If you have a copy/image/backup of the drives contents why not run chkdsk (twice) and see what it does?
I've had similar scenarios where they have successfully booted afterwards.

 

[Mike McCall]

In that case maybe it's just a bad case of heart burn. W10 is GPT. Personally I've never tried doing much in the way of repairing GPT volumes. Just been a nuke and pave for non-boot issues like this.

Eventually I will. That will have to wait until I gain proper access to the drive.

If you have a copy/image/backup of the drives contents why not run chkdsk (twice) and see what it does?
I've had similar scenarios where they have successfully booted afterwards.

Have tried that and other repairs as outlined above, but chkdsk won't run as there's no booting the drive to even get to the command prompt. Running chkdsk via cmd through a system disc also fails.

 

[frase]

Simple question, though have you used another SATA cable?

 

[labtech]

Can run chkdsk with the drive connected to a machine as a secondary drive. Then place back in the system and test booting.
As far as SMART test, what do you use? And did you use more than one SMART tool? Sometimes one tool may not tell the whole truth.
Same with short test. May not discover the real problem.

 

[Archon Prime]

So weird. I had this exact same issue a few weeks ago.. couldn't even boot to another windows 10 disk. I gave up on it and just charged him for the data recovery.

 

[Mike McCall]

Can run chkdsk with the drive connected to a machine as a secondary drive. Then place back in the system and test booting.
As far as SMART test, what do you use? And did you use more than one SMART tool? Sometimes one tool may not tell the whole truth.
Same with short test. May not discover the real problem.

Running chkdsk now via USB. So far no issues.

I initially ran the built-in HP utility which I think is PC Doctor. I also run gsmartcontrol irregardless of what I find elsewhere. Everyone has their favorite.

Simple question, though have you used another SATA cable?

Not yet. I was able to put the original drive (the one the problem drive was cloned from) in and it booted fine. I'll swap the cable though just to be sure.

So weird. I had this exact same issue a few weeks ago.. couldn't even boot to another windows 10 disk. I gave up on it and just charged him for the data recovery.

Usually there's either software corruption or hardware failure. This drive isn't telling me anything so far. I do have another drive I can clone the original to, which may get me out of the dog house with the wife. However, I still have a brand new drive with a problem I have so far not been able to identify.

 

[lcoughey]

Passes S.M.A.R.T test
Passes short test.

SMART only shows reported errors and short test only tests a fraction of a percent of sectors. So, although the drive might actually be good, neither test is enough to make that conclusion. The only test I'd trust is a full sector-by-sector read (preferably clone).

With that said, I have seen a few instances where the Windows boot partition somehow gets corrupted. The easiest way I found to "fix" it was to simply overwrite it with the boot partition from another drive. Not something I'd recommend doing without a backup.

 

[Mike McCall]

SMART only shows reported errors and short test only tests a fraction of a percent of sectors. So, although the drive might actually be good, neither test is enough to make that conclusion. The only test I'd trust is a full sector-by-sector read (preferably clone).

With that said, I have seen a few instances where the Windows boot partition somehow gets corrupted. The easiest way I found to "fix" it was to simply overwrite it with the boot partition from another drive. Not something I'd recommend doing without a backup.

Thanks, Luke. I do get that SMART tests are not conclusive, and are incomplete. I also get that it still could be the drive itself, though at this point my suspicions lie with it being a software issue.

At this point I think I'll clone the original drive to a new drive to get the machine back to the wife and make peace, while I continue to work on this drive. I want to at least determine what the real issue is, hardware or software. If hardware, I'll have to return the drive. If software, I'll get to learn how to fix it.

 

[Mike McCall]

So, I gave-up on the drive. I went back and cloned the original drive to a new drive I had and got the wife's machine running again. I determined I could continue fighting with the drive attempting to repair what seemed to be a software issue (at least to me), or I could just wipe it and start over. While part of me wants to find a way to fix everything, I really don't need a project. I am curious about what would prevent me from being able to repair Windows startup, though.

 

[Mike McCall]

View attachment 8969

Haha! I'm sure that's it.

 

[Haole Boy]

... While part of me wants to find a way to fix everything,

I suffer from this malady also. I've had a couple machines where I could not figure out why Windows would not boot and spent WAAAAY too much time trying to fix it. A save of data with Fab's then wipe and fresh install install of Windows resolved the issue in a lot less time than I spent doing googling and trying things. A real PITA to have to re-install all the software where the customer does not have install files/media, license keys, etc. but it was the only way to get the machine back to the customer. Hoping that my sense of self-preservation will get better as I encounter this situation in the future....

Harry Z