HTPC Crash Dumping and cannot upgrade to Windows 10

Arkitekt · 26 Oct 2015

Hi all, hoping this is the right subforum

I built a HTPC a few years ago and it had suited my needs fine. Relevant parts used are:

i3-3225 CPU,
Scythe Big Shuriken 2 RevB,
Asus P8-H77 Pro,
2 x 4GB G.Skill Ares DDR3 1600 RAM,
Samsung 830 Series 64Gb SSD (OS HDD),
WD Cavier Green 2TB (Media HDD),

Lately though I am experiencing more frequent crash dumps and I cannot locate the cause. I tried to upgrade to Windows 10 but kept receiving errors, such as the partition was not GPT (0xc000021a). The one error that happens every time I tried to upgrade or install Windows 10 was winload.exe was not digitally signed. I wiped the drive, reformatted it as NTFS, converted to GPT and installed W10 from blank and still had the same winload.exe error. Right now I have put W7 Ultimate 64bit back on and am installing all the windows updates.

My question is, does anyone know why I keep get a winload.exe not digitally signed error? I have downloaded the W10 upgrade files numerous times, redownloaded the media creation tool, set clean boot, even tried downloading the upgrade and creating a usb drive with it from a different PC but same error.

Also, any ideas regarding the crash dumps? Is there some unknown incompatibility with my hardware? I do not have a GPU, just using the HD4000 on the CPU. Is there perhaps some upgrades that I should make my HTPC?

**axe0** · 01 Nov 2015

Hi Arkitekt,

Welcome to the 7forums.

I am very sorry for the delay, due to all the thread that have been created I have missed yours.

This 0xc000021a you are talking about has a few usual causes, one I think is right now most important is mismatched system files.
Please read the instructions below carefully and try to perform them, because the upgrade to Windows 10 fails we need to make sure the hardware is fine too.
If you have any questions, please ask them.

Note

I do not really have much experience with APU's, so I do not know what tests can be run on them which is the reason why I still added the GPU test

Diagnostics Test

System File Check

Please try following:

Open an admin command prompt
Copy/paste "sfc/scannow" (without quotes) and press enter
When it finished reboot your system
Open again an admin command prompt
Enter sfc/scannow again

If sfc/scannow does NOT say "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violation", please upload the cbs.log file located at {windows partition}\Windows\Logs\CBS\, if the file is too large try a 3rd party uploader like dropbox, onedrive, google drive, mediafire etc.
System File Check(SFC a.k.a. Windows Resource Protection) needs to have your system rebooted in order for sfc to try to fix the problems that it finds.

Diagnostic test

GPU TEST

Run Furmark to test your GPU. Furmark tutorial

Note

Run Furmark for around 30 minutes

Warning

Your GPU temperatures will rise quickly while Furmark is running. Keep a keen eye on them and abort the test if temperatures rise too high

Diagnostics Test

HDD TEST

Run SeaTools to check the integrity of your HDD. SeaTools for DOS and Windows - How to Use

Note

Do not run SeaTools on an SSD as the results will be invalid.

Run chkdsk Disk Check

Diagnostic Test

CPU TEST

Run Prime95 to stress test your CPU. Prime95 - Stress Test Your CPU - Windows 7 Forums

Warning

Your CPU temperatures will rise quickly while under this stress test. Keep a keen eye on them and abort the test if overheating occurs.

Diagnostic Test

RAM TEST

Run MemTest86+ to analyse your RAM. MemTest86+ - Test RAM - Windows 7 Forums

Note

MemTest86+ needs to be run for at least 8 passes for conclusive results. Set it running before you go to bed and leave it overnight. We're looking for zero errors here. Even a single error will indicate RAM failure.