Solved Tried to upgrade to Win 10 Preview. Blackscreen during setup. No boot.

[RolandHazoto]

So a couple days ago I got impatient for Windows 10 while reading all it's upcoming features. So I decided I'd give the insider preview a whirl and when I saw I could just install through Windows Update I was even more elated since I figured it was error proof.
So I left Win Update download and went to sleep. At some point during the night my net broke and I had to power cycle my modem and router when I awoke. The download resumed and I eventually began the install process.
It gets to the reboot point and just sits at a black screen. I left it sit for awhile but the first thing I noticed was the lack of activity on the HDD light on the front of my case. So after awhile I hard powered down the system and restarted it. Same thing.
So I pulled out my graphics card because for my last 3 vid cards, my bios is inaccessible with em in and takes and extra minute to boot, but this is another matter that I started a thread on a long time ago and never found a solution.

My first thought was maybe the graphics card anomaly was interfering somehow, but same result. From here on I have left the graphics card removed and am using onboard video so I can select bot devices and enter my bios settings.

Next I tried mashing f8 and tried safe mode. Stops at classpnp.sys

I broke my recovery tools awhile back when I installed new hard drives, so I created a WinRE USB, and ran startup repair on both the unknown Windows install (presumably the setup for 10) and the windows 7 install. With hitting yes when it asks to try to restore, I kept getting restart to finish repairs, with the same black screen result. So I tried without the restore option and it gave me an error saying it could not fix it and offered option of sending a report.

I've tried both bootrec.exe /fixmbr & /fixboot on both windows installs.

Mashing f12 right as my bios goes to load windows got me to the selection for windows installs, which offers Windows Setup and Windows 7 as my options. I've tried all the advanced options for both except debugging mode. An interesting note when trying this, what I believe is the Windows 10 logo (light blue windows logo) does flash for a sec each time it is selected, then the computer restarts.

The last thing I tried while typing this post is running SFC scannow with the offline switches. Both runs on the windows 7 selection ended with "corrupt files unable to fix some of them"
I'm at a loss now and I'm going to play around with the Windows 10 install disc I just downloaded from M$ to see if I can find a way to fix this from there.
The CBS.log file is over 360MB so none of my text editors want to open it without locking up. I'm uploading to mediafire and will post.
Is anyone able to help me? I've been at this off and on for 3 days now...

 

[RolandHazoto]

Here is the CBS.log file:
http://www.**************/download/x4elzgdr3lefc84/CBS.log
So far I've had no luck with the windows 10 disk. I tried the old custom install/windows.old trick, but it's saying I can't install to an MBR hard drive. ( I was hoping it would be like "hey we found an incomplete setup! want to finish it?" lol )
And the reset PC option tells me the HDD is locked.
I'm going to try making a usb install and trying mbr and gpt.
EDIT:
The asterisks in the link are mediafire's website.

 

[Ztruker]

Do you have your system backed up? If so, look in C:\$Windows~BT\Sources for install.wim.
Copy it to another computer.
Download ESDtoISO tool. Put it and the install.wim in the same folder, unzip ESDtoISO.ziop then run ESDtoISO.cmd from a Elevated Command Prompt.
Select 1. to create a full ISO.

Once you have the iso, you can burn a DVD or better yet, create a flash drive to install Win 10 from. Create a BIOS/MBR flash drive, not a UEFI/GPT flash drive. Rufus is a good program to do this with.

Boot the flash drive, take the Custom path and delete all partitions on the hard drive so it's an empty, un-partitioned disk, then click Next. Win 10 install will create and format the partitions it wants.

 

[RolandHazoto]

Do you have your system backed up? If so, look in C:\$Windows~BT\Sources for install.wim.
Copy it to another computer.
Download ESDtoISO tool. Put it and the install.wim in the same folder, unzip ESDtoISO.ziop then run ESDtoISO.cmd from a Elevated Command Prompt.
Select 1. to create a full ISO.

Once you have the iso, you can burn a DVD or better yet, create a flash drive to install Win 10 from. Create a BIOS/MBR flash drive, not a UEFI/GPT flash drive. Rufus is a good program to do this with.

Boot the flash drive, take the Custom path and delete all partitions on the hard drive so it's an empty, un-partitioned disk, then click Next. Win 10 install will create and format the partitions it wants.

I did not create a back up. I left my faith in Windows Update doing this right... (whoops lol)
And I figured, worst case scenario system restore would save me.

 

[RolandHazoto]

Something else worth noting, when creating my WinRE usb, I didn't have a Winre.wim in my recovery folder (i had no recovery folder) so I pulled the one from windows\system32 from my girlfriend's laptop, which is also running Win7 Home x64.
Could that have affected my repair attempts in anyway?

 

[RolandHazoto]

So after all the headaches, running chkdsk /f fixed my windows 7 install. I'm kinda mad at myself for not running this sooner. (in my defense this has never fixed anything for me ever before)
I'm now going to put my vid card back in my computer and attempt to retry the win 10 upgrade, this time from a disc rather than windows update.
Worst case scenario, at least I now know how to fix it. ( I shall mark as solved when I know for certain my problems are fixed)
Update:
The disc install wouldn't proceed and stayed at 16%, I suspect Win 7's iso burning tool may have burned it improperly. Usb install worked beautifully and I am currently posting this from my now Windows 10 machine!