Solved Windows Update never completes, no error given

[CoastalData]

Hello,

I've got a Dell xps computer that was originally running Win 7 64 bit, and then the harddrive failed, I imaged it to a new harddrive, which turned out to be an Advanced Format drive, and then I upgraded to Win 8 because I had some problems which I had attributed to corrupted Windows components from when the original drive failed. (There were indeed some cross-linked files which were system dlls that were picked up by chkdsk.)

The upgrade went smoothly, and most everything works perfectly, except for two things: Windows Updates, which simply never completes, and MSSQL Express which fails with an error log message "sector size 4096 and is now on a volume with sector size 3072" blah blah blah.

Has anybody got any suggestions on how to proceed and get this all working again? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

--Jon

 

[cluberti]

Can you try again, wait to fail, and then immediately post a copy of your WindowsUpdate.log file in the \Windows directory?

 

[CoastalData]

Can you believe that it's been searching for updates since I posted this yesterday, and has still not "failed"? But I checked the log, and it is 3100 lines long, and spans from 8/28, when I upgraded, until current... Should I post that whole thing?

 

[CoastalData]

Awwww, crud! I figured it out by reading that danged logfile for myself!

I noticed a reference to my Win 2003 server, "SUPPORT1:8530", which I suddenly recognized as a long-since failed and removed installation of WSUS, so I searched out my registry, and removed all references to it, and VOILA! I've now got 21 new updates downloading!!!!!

Nothing I hate worse than asking for help and then finding out that I should have figured it out on my own. Oh well, nobody's perfect, right?

Thanks for reminding me to look at that log!!!!

 

[cluberti]

LOL - good find, of course!