Failed driver update now can't boot Windows 7 on NVME SSD (0x0000007B)

SIW2 · 03 Nov 2019

No point in answering questions if you won't follow suggestions. You will still have the non working hives ( that's why you renamed them). Hopefully the hives from 30/10 will work. If not, you are SOL.

Replacing hives from regback is a known fix. That is why windows creates the backup hives in regback. What did you think they are for?

MS provides a number of possible recovery mechanisms, including system restore and regback. But nothing is as reliable as disk/partition imaging. Since you haven't mentioned it, presumably you didn't make any images.

On the usb stick:
Did you try running the Install oem drivers link under the start menu? It could be that the ASmedia xhci driver isn't loading automatically.

If you check device manager, you might find the usb3 root hub listed, but not the xhci. Running the oem drivers link should do it. Then refresh explorer to see any new drives.

abolibibelot · 03 Nov 2019

No point in answering questions if you won't follow suggestions. You will still have the non working hives ( that's why you renamed them). Hopefully the hives from 30/10 will work. If not, you are SOL.

I did try to follow most suggestions up to that point...

Replacing hives from regback is a known fix. That is why windows creates the backup hives in regback. What did you think they are for?

I wasn't aware that Windows did create automatic backups of the registry so I didn't think anything about it up to now. Now that I know, I don't think that it's a bad thing to ask for a bit of clarification before proceeding to such a major modification. (Especially in such a situation where nothing works as intended -- I didn't mention that even the mouse has been unresponsive half the time when booting to that live environment...)

MS provides a number of possible recovery mechanisms, including system restore and regback. But nothing is as reliable as disk/partition imaging. Since you haven't mentioned it, presumably you didn't make any images.

I did make a Macrium Reflect backup, but it's almost a year old, and there are many important things which change on a daily basis on the system partition (like the Firefox profile with 200+ tabs, or the working directory of downloading programs -- that is backed up much more frequently, but there are other things which may not be), hence why an in-place fix would be much preferred. And another problem is : how to restore a backup if the device is not accessible because of a driver issue ? I've never been in such a situation so I couldn't plan ahead.

I also tried this procedure which was recommended on another forum :

1) Copy windows 7 installer on USB pendrive
2) Copy that driver to some folder on USB drive (for example SamsungNVMEdriver) https://www.mediafire.com/file/1s3t4pwo7tnci96/SamsungNVMEdriver.7z/file
3) Boot from USB drive
4) Press SHIFT+F10
5) In console enter Dism.exe /image:X: /Get-Drivers
Where X is letter where you have windows installed
6) Find file secnvme.inf on the list
7) if file exists then remove that driver with this command. You must use file name in Published name line!
Dism.exe /image:X /Remove-Driver /Driver:OEMxx.inf
Where xx is a number
8) In console enter Dism.exe /image:X: /Add-Driver /Driver:"Y:\SamsungNVMEdriver\secnvme.inf"
Where Y is your usb pendrive

Didn't work either (although the commands were executed successfully). Is this exactly the same procedure that Dism++ runs "under the hood" ? Any idea why it fails ? Could it be that the changes made when updating the Intel drivers and requiring a reboot keep reverting the registry to that wonky state regarding the Samsung NVME driver ?
I really thought that it could work here, since this 7Z archive contains exactly the same files I had installed before (when it worked) plus the .inf file which was missing (since I had initially installed the Samsung driver with the installer provided by the manufacturer).

On the usb stick:
Did you try running the Install oem drivers link under the start menu? It could be that the ASmedia xhci driver isn't loading automatically.
If you check device manager, you might find the usb3 root hub listed, but not the xhci. Running the oem drivers link should do it. Then refresh explorer to see any new drives.

I'll try that later on, but I plugged the device to a USB2 port each time, which shouldn't require extra drivers in a Windows 7 based environment if I'm not mistaken.

SIW2 · 03 Nov 2019

Is this exactly the same procedure that Dism++ runs "under the hood" ?

Similar.

Any idea why it fails ?

The driver/has been removed or partially removed already.

but I plugged the device to a USB2 port each time

That is very odd - perhaps the usb stick isn't being mounted to a letter. You could check in disk management and see if it shows there.

abolibibelot · 05 Nov 2019

(In the mean time I had to deal with yet another SNAFU – no electricity since yesterday afternoon, turns out that the supposedly "green" and so-called "social" provider simply terminated my contract for no obvious reason and with no warning whatsoever...

I tried to reach them repeatedly but all I can get after 15 minutes of hearing silly waiting anouncements and a cringeworthy ear-worm melody is a clueless operator who does not have access to any information, and I had to repeat everything twice screaming a the top of my lungs cuz' their phone line was defective... My neighbour was kind enough to let me plug a long wire in his apartment, but mine is no longer heated, the temperature is 17.4°C right now and going down, and I'm writing this in near darkness, with only a desktop lamp as a source of light for the whole apartment... FUUUUUUUUU...

)

The driver/has been removed or partially removed already.

But the double command I quoted is supposed to remove it properly then re-install it, isn't it ?

So, I finally managed to get the system working again by :
– restoring the registry's three main files from RegBak as you advised,
– and restoring each file found in "LastGood" to its corresponding location (System32, System32\drivers, and SysWOW64), so as to minimize the inconsistencies with the older registry.

Then I proceeded to reinstall the updated Intel graphic and storage drivers, and reboot right away, and there was no issue this time. (I didn't attempt to re-install the Samsung driver, don't want to risk going trough that mess again for no obvious benefit.)

Before that I tried what was my first idea, it was a painstaking process and it failed miserably, I'd like to know why.
With WinHex (from that same live environment) I extracted an image from the NVME SSD Windows install and the small "system reserved" partition. Then I copied both images to the corresponding partitions (exact same size) on the SATA SSD. (The tricky part is that the system kept writing on both partitions, or prevented some system files to be overwritten, so in order to get a perfectly accurate copy I had to first disable the MBR by replacing "55 AA" by "FF FF", then unplug the SATA SSD, then re-plug it, then proceed with the image transfers, then thoroughly verify that there were no differences, and at the end restore the valid MBR code... I spent all evening doing this, which would have been trivial if there was an easy way to prevent Windows from mounting and accessing a particular storage device, which is the default behaviour with most Linux distributions – unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, I was unable to boot from a Linux USB drive or DVD on this computer. WinHex does have an option to write-protect a device, but then it refuses to write on it itself, so it defeats the purpose in this case.) Then I removed the NVME SSD (at first I disabled its MBR as described above, then I physically removed it, the result was the same in both cases) and attempted to boot from the SATA SSD which now contained a bit-perfect copy of the Windows 7 install from the NVME SSD. And I got this error :
Attachment 409999
Meaning, I would guess, that the system was somehow expecting to complete the update process, and was expecting to complete it on the specific device on which it was started, which I wasn't expecting. And whatever happened at each startup probably reverted any registry fix made by Dism in the meantime.
Here are two log files generated during the failed update of the Samsung NVME driver :
Attachment 410000
Attachment 410001
One line in particular seems to corroborate that hypothesis :
"Error code 0x3FD: Impossible de créer une sous-clé stable sous une clé parente volatile."

If I understand this correctly, the whole sub-hive (if that's the right term) pertaining to storage controllers was considered "volatile", and it couldn't proceed to apply the required modifications, but it must removed something somewhere anyway, and then wasn't able to do a proper rollback. Does that make sense technically ?

I haven't had a new BSOD yet (usually it happens after a 3-5 days session and several hibernation / wake-up cycles), but I still have that long running issue (which started right after I migrated the system from the SATA SSD to the NVME SSD) of abnormally long wake-up time from hibernation : today, according the the value found in "Diagnostics-Performance" in "Application and services logs", it took 184 seconds ; on November 1st it took 294 seconds, sometimes it's even more. With that supposedly blazing fast (and quite expensive) device I expected wake-up times to be almost instantanous, it doesn't make any sense, and I have no idea of what it's doing while the storage device activity LED is blinking frantically ! (The condition of the device seems perfect, according to HDSentinel.) I'll have to create a new thread for this as it's mostly unrelated.

SIW2 · 05 Nov 2019

the supposedly "green" and so-called "social" provider simply terminated my contract for no obvious reason and with no warning whatsoever...

So, I finally managed to get the system working again by :
– restoring the registry's three main files from RegBak as you advised,

1. You might locate the problem by comparing the system hive from regback with the bad system hive from system32\config. ( which you renamed to system.bok)

Or you could put them in a zip and upload them here and I might get time to have a look.

2. I suggest you make image backups of your system regularly.

Windows system image works ok and uses the .vhd format.

If you want the extra gui options of a 3rd party imaging tool - I recommend Aomei Backupper. It is very easy to use and does the job. The free version is fine for many people.
Best Free Backup Software for Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP

In addition you can use the free acelogix tool called REgbak to back up your hives every so often.
Acelogix Software - Downloads

SIW2 · 05 Nov 2019

1. In your screenshot, Windows is telling you it cannot find the device.

"The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible"

Usually that is because the bcd store entry is not pointing at the new device.

2. I made something to fix those errors. It is called nt6repair and is included in my boot media
17514x64v15.iso

Nt6repair has boot repair and drive letter fix functions. Both of those are needed after moving an OS.

Attachment 410005