Win 8 to Win 8.1 update - failed boot - restart loop

[seedee]

HiI bought Win 8 for a Win 7 Dell laptop in Jan. 2013 and have happily used Win 8 for a year. I have a Win 8 backup disc and valid license key.

I decided to update Win 8 to the free Win 8.1 a few days ago and went ahead with the download and installation of Win 8.1. However, after a seemingly successful installation, set up and login, a simple reboot resulted in no longer being able to boot. I can boot to safe mode but cannot boot properly no matter what I do.
There is no specific error message when I reboot, the OS simply fails to reach the login stage and reboots again. It then opens the 'Failed startup' page asking if I wish to use advanced options or restart.

I tried turning off all non-Microsoft software like AVG, Comodo, Samsung Keys, etc., but it didn't solve the issue.

I also noticed that Safe Mode boot fails when I attempt to boot to 'Safe Mode with Networking' but is successful when booting to simple 'Safe Mode' or 'Safe Mode with Command Prompt'.

I have attempted to burn the Win 8.1 disc as described on this site but from a Win XP system which according to the download software is not possible and unfortunately I do not have access to another system.

Can anyone please help me repair and boot my system?
Thank you for any help.

 

[David Bailey]

You said:

Hi, I bought Win 8 for a Win 7 Dell laptop in Jan. 2013 and have happily used Win 8 for a year. I have a Win 8 backup disc and valid license key.

Why not use the Win 8 disk & reinstall Win 8 ?

 

[furrykitten]

Hi Seedee,

I had a similar occurrence a few days ago. It turned out to be ESET anti-virus causing the problem in my case when I upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1. You must completely uninstall anti-virus before upgrading. Anyway, I ended up doing a clean install of 8.0 Pro with usb media and then I upgraded to 8.1 after downloading updates. The installation goes smoothly like this.

 

[seedee]

Why not use the Win 8 disk & reinstall Win 8 ?

I was hoping not to have to as I didn't want to lose any of my documents nor have to save everything elsewhere as there's approx. 50GB on it. I was also reluctant to re-install Window 8 both because I was initially hoping to upgrade and also because it seemed pretty poor of M$ to not provide any support when all I was doing was upgrading, which they offered for free.

Hi Seedee,
I had a similar occurrence a few days ago. It turned out to be ESET anti-virus causing the problem in my case when I upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1. You must completely uninstall anti-virus before upgrading. Anyway, I ended up doing a clean install of 8.0 Pro with usb media and then I upgraded to 8.1 after downloading updates. The installation goes smoothly like this.

Thanks, and my apologies for not being able to get back to you sooner.
Everything non-Microsoft was disabled while in Safe Mode.

I have now saved all my documents to a USB stick and have resolved myself to the fact that the system is as good as lost. However, I tried to reinstall Win8 with my backup disc and now it won't even allow me to do that. When trying to install Windows using the disc, the system simply turns off during the setup process with no warning (the system is not over-heating). Also, with the disc not inserted, the system seems to be stuck in a continuous reboot loop after showing the screen saying ' there appears to be a problem.... collecting data', etc., and doesn't even show the 'Preparing Advanced Startup' page or 'Diagnosing the PC' page.

So, unless anyone can suggest another way of getting this system up and running properly, I think I'm going to remove the disc and wipe it via a cable and another system then just do a fresh install of Win 8 - albeit extremely reluctantly.

 

[seedee]

Wiped my disc, reinstalled Win 8, updated and then upgraded via the app store.Pretty p****d off M$ didn't offer any help to get my initial installation fixed but it wasn't a complete surprise.