/rant/ I lose faith in Windows on occasions....

fafhrd

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Stuck at login screen with "Preparing Windows"

Today, I probably did something a little reckless and accidentally wiped out all my partitions on my main Windows 8 /Windows 7/Linux Mint laptop. Now I've been with Windows for yonks, but this has me a little stumped.

Before I realised I had no functional hard drive I didn't worry, I booted up a Windows 8 repair disk, which informed me in diskpart that I had a completely unallocated hard disk. No repair possible.

I dug out a Windows-to-go Usb, downloaded the Minitools partition recovery utility and lo: all my partitions reappeared.

On rebooting, only an old Windows 7 boot menu appeared, without my windows 8.1 option.

I found my windows 8.1 DVD, and booted up until I got to the first install screen where I could press Shift F10 to get a WinPE command prompt, and did a diskpart to check that I could see the boot and system volumes for Windows 8.1 and then issued a bcdboot command to include the windows 8.1 location in the boot menu.

Simple, and on the next boot the graphical Windows 8.1 boot menu appeared with all the options - I haven't used this for years, since there is a bug, anyways preferring the text-based one, for this very reason - the boot screen would not recognize my touchpad. It was not always so - the WTG I had used earlier had no difficulties with a mouse on its graphical boot menu.

So I had to let the menu time out to Windows 8.1 default, and the login screen recognizes my user default, forgets my Picture and sticks on Preparing Windows for 20 minutes before going to a black screen which after an hour I switched off - it repeated this the next time I tried to boot, so after waiting what I considered to be a reasonable time I switched off again, rebooted and interrupted boot-up a couple of times by switching off, since F8 does not work, eventually I had the option to use F9 to boot to Windows 7.

I'm in the middle of a long chkdsk now as Windows 7 boots, and all the disks that I have left dirty by closing down ungraciously are being checked. /rant/

Would anyone like to suggest my next course of action to get windows 8.1 working again, assuming I can boot into Windows 7, or indeed my WTG usb (which is rather slow and is limited to 1 h only since it is a release preview WTG!). I'm knackered, and annoyed, and likely to do something silly on my own. I guess that I should edit the boot menu to default to text based, not Windows 8.1 and to offer safe mode command prompt or some other troubleshooting options. Please point me to the right tutorial. :)

In a nutshell:

the Immersive boot menu does not find my touchpad pointer, so I cannot navigate away from the default boot entry, and

Windows sticks at the login screen "Preparing Windows" until my screen blanks out - presumably because power saving clicks in - I really don't know what is going on.

Windows 7 does still work! Windows 8 upgraded to 8.1 never had any problems, and the Windows *.1 volume appears healthy from Win7 Explorer.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
In Command Prompt type "bcdboot %windir%" to get the boot menu GUI...without the commas.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
I've managed from Windows 7 to change the default boot OS and the boot menu to legacy text rather than GUI, but I cannot access Windows 8.1 - and I can't get to command prompt - not even safe mode - it's stuck at the Login screen, and from the squashed shape of the default login screen image (faceless head in square box), it has lost the resolution settings too.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
I've managed from Windows 7 to change the default boot OS and the boot menu to legacy text rather than GUI, but I cannot access Windows 8.1 - and I can't get to command prompt - not even safe mode - it's stuck at the Login screen, and from the squashed shape of the default login screen image (faceless head in square box), it has lost the resolution settings too.
Can you "Restart" on the login screen?.....If so important this...Hold Shift and restart computer....This should bring up Troubleshooting options, including System Image Recovery.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro
I think it was the Quote mark to not copy or type, not commas. And be sure to right-click the Command Prompt to Run as administrator, without that it says the files can't be found.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    WinXP, WinVista, Win7, Win8.1, Win10, Linux Mint 20
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    2 Customs and 12 OEM/Brands
    CPU
    AMD and Intel
I can do nothing on the login screen - it looks just like this:

928AF2F2192B8F278191FF854A8910D6AE406583.png

Just as if I had just installed Windows 8 - but I haven't, and then after 20 minutes the screen goes black. No keyboard or mouse at this time.

I also have to reiterate that I cannot navigate around the boot menu - no touchpad or keyboard clicks seem to move away from the selected default. It is a known problem for some laptops with windows 8.1 - I have never sought a solution because the workaround of a text-based boot menu suits a multiboot system better IMO.

When I have had a nights rest I shall do an in place repair install:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/26095-repair-install-windows-8-a.html

But I don't want to start this tonight.

3 days later, and I have not got a working Windows 8.1 installation yet! So many obstacles in the way.

Well, after several "Preparing Windows" false starts and allowing all disk activity to cease and a few CHKDSKs I've decided that the Windows 8.1 installation is borked, and an in-place repair is out of the question, since I cannot get beyond the inaccessible login screen.

Making, then booting from a Windows 8.1 install USB was fine, but Windows restore just would not work. It would not attempt to use the custom backup image I made a while back for some reason. The boot menu also balked at a refresh, and I really don't want to do a reset, yet. Serves me right for relying on Windows, and not having a 3rd party backup image, I suppose.

Still, I have access to all my PC volumes due to the dual boot - except the Linux mint wubi bootloader was also corrupted, but that is easy enough to reinstall. For a quick solution I downloaded the windows installer for Puppy linux - I want to be able to find the restore point files easily and check them out. Puppy is so small and runs in RAM, but the Windows installer is not compatible with Fast boot, Secure boot or UEFI in Windows 8.

Last night I created an image of my Windows 8 130GB volume with Imagex - it took over 5 hours, and resulted in a 23GB wim file, which I have backed up. It is annoying that 7-Zip always seems to report an "incorrect reference count" when opening .wim files, these days Everything seems in place. When I have looked at the restore point files, I'll wipe the old 8.1 installation, and reapply the system image. It might just be that the hiberfile and swapfiles are confused at boot time. Are'nt I optimistic?
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP COMPAQ Presario CQ57
    CPU
    AMD E- 300 APU with Radion HD Graphics 1.30GHz
    Motherboard
    inbuilt
    Memory
    4GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI
    Sound Card
    High Definition Audio on-board
    Monitor(s) Displays
    notebook
    Screen Resolution
    1366x768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate ST9500325AS
    Google drive 15GB
    Skydrive 25GB
    BT Cloud
    PSU
    external 20v
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    pretty good
    Keyboard
    inbuilt
    Mouse
    touchpad
    Internet Speed
    BT Infinity Unlimited - 80 up 20 down =70/16 really
    Browser
    Chrome Canary usually
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender and Malwarebytes
    Other Info
    no Start menu modifications
    Upgraded with no issues to 8.0 and to 8.1
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