Microsoft Auto update then a BSOD and can't recover

Hi Folks,

Be patient with me, I am not much of a Windows 7 guy. :) This morning my laptop notified me that I had a Windows security update, so I shutdown all of the applications and let it update. I am set up with auto-updates (yeah, I now know, not a great idea). So it went through its thing and then automatically rebooted. After it told me not to turn off the computer while it was updating, I waited and waited for what seemed to be a long time but might have been 15 minutes. I didn't turn it off and it started to come up, but then I got the BSOD. So I got the reboot screen and put it into safe mode and got the same BSOD. I went into the BIOS and did the Start-up test and it checked the memory, the hard disk, and both were fine. I thought, well OK, I had a repair CD, I will use it. I booted up with it and ran the disk repair, with the same results. I tried to recover from a previous recovery point, but it couldn't find any. With the recovery disk and selecting the command prompt, I can see the C: drive. As I can't get to the Start menu most of the fixes I have read will not work, so my question: is there a way from the command prompt to get rid of the update (revert to previous state), turn off automatic updates, and prevent the OS from installing the latest update?

Or do you know of a better way to approach this?

Thanks,
Glen

How often does it BSOD in Safe Mode?

Although, technically your laptop is still bootable, this tutorial may give you some useful troubleshooting steps:

• Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

It BSOD all the time in Safe Mode. Thanks for the link. I am going through it now.

Thanks, and usually if it BSODs in Safe Mode, then it is most likely a hardware problem.

Do you know any of the Stop Codes for the BSODs when they happen? Although, I won't be able to find out the exact cause from them, it will help narrow down the cause slightly.

After hacking at this for a very long time, I decided to re-install from the boot disk Windows 7. I forgot how much I added and was surprised how many times it updated, but now I have learned my lesson and only do manual updates. Thanks for your help.

Welcome :) Post back if you have any other BSODs.