winload.exe 0xc000000f error, what caused it?

[jimhoyle]

I was using Windows 7 (with newest updates) normally. Then I decided to do two things. After those changes Windows went haywire very quickly. First, I did Disk Cleanup. It was strange that there was ~600 GB for temporary windows update files or something like that. So I tried to clean that up. But it didn't clean up 600 GB, so there might've been some statistical error on that. Anyway, I just normally ran the Disk Cleanup about 3 times, trying to toggle more things to delete each time. Nothing special happened immediately after doing this. So it might or might not be related.

Then I noticed that C:\Windows\logs\CBS had insanely large .log files in it. Like over 30 GB (one was 28 GB). So I deleted *.log in that folder. Maybe a few minutes after that the Windows went crazy. Don't know if that was related or not. Suddenly (AutoHotkey reported that) many files were missing from the system. However, most things still worked normally. Chrome had no problems etc. No files were actually missing, I checked. The files were there, no problem loading them. So I thought I should just reboot. Then I got the winload.exe error immediately.

I've been trying to fix this for a few days. There are some possible solutions that I didn't try because there's a risk I'll mess up everything beyond repair. Some of the things I already tried are: bootrec /rebuildbcd (does nothing because "Total identified Windows installations: 0"), System Repair from a Win7 setup USB stick (did nothing useful), copying C:\windows\system32\config\regback\COMPONENTS etc. to ..\ (no help) and so on. All files seem to be in place, chkdsk is fine, everything seems fine, but still nothing but the winload.exe error.

One problem is I lost the original Win7 setup USB stick (or was it DVD). I originally installed the Windows in 2012 and afterwards I got new setup USB sticks and got rid of the old one. Now I tried with 3 different Win7 64-bit USB setups and for some repair functions it complains that the version is incorrect. But it shouldn't be, they are from around the same time period and it's definitely 64-bit.

My main question: is it dangerous to try MSDaRT Tools / Disk Commander, if I rebuild MBR with that, might I mess up everything beyond repair? What else should I try?

 

[jimhoyle]

Now I tried yet another Win7 setup USB (2016). This one runs Startup Repair normally but then it says NoOsInstalled. All Microsoft tools say that the OS doesn't exist and therefore nothing is done. But C:\Windows and everything exists, no visible problems there. Or it's technically not C: at the repair command prompt, but still. Diskpart (list volume) says:
- Volume 0 = C = "Data" = NTFS Partition 100 MB Healthy
- Volum 1 = D = "MySSDdrive" = NTFS Partition 931 GB Healthy
(all other drives are currently disconnected)

 

[Paul Black]

Hi jimhoyle,

Firstly, let's get your system specifications sorted out in your UserCP > Edit System Spec setup. This will enable us to give you better advice!

The tutorial below [Published by Brink and written by CyberZeus] let's you easily see all of your system information, along with the option of making filling out your system specifications here at Seven Forums easier: How to see your System Specs with "System Info"

Secondly, I would definately make an image of your system [on an external HDD] before you go any further. AOMEI Backupper Standard is FREE and does what it says on the tin: AOMEI Backupper Standard. There are of course other imaging programs that do pretty much the same thing!

I hope this helps!

 

[jimhoyle]

Ok thanks, relevant system specs now in place in my UserCP here.

What's the best program or thing to try if Windows is not recognized as an OS at all (by any Microsoft tools) even all the files seem to be in place (and the problem started suddenly without any apparent reason)?

 

[jimhoyle]

The problem may or may not have something to do with CSM, ATA/AHCI or UEFI/OPROM. But I have tried switching those settings in UEFI/BIOS too, to no avail. Kind of a long stretch to start changing those settings after everything worked fine for a long time, but I still feel like those should be mentioned just in case. Before changing the drive mode from AHCI to ATA and back to ACHI, I got always the winload.exe error. But now I get only the /Boot/BCD (0xc000000f) error. Not sure what happened..

 

[jimhoyle]

I can access the OS disk in the rescue command prompt no problem. And one other hard drive I have (if I attach it) does have a working OS and boots normally, so my computer isn't fried. It seems to be something with my main SSD drive (it or it's contents, I strongly suspect it's contents, chkdsk is fine). I tried changing the SSD drive's power and SATA cable to another drive's cables, no difference.

Edits: I made some mistakes in the text, fixed.

 

[jimhoyle]

I'm juggling between Win7 setup versions because they behave differently. I am not sure if I should use an old or a new Win7 setup USB stick for the recovery. Or some other bootable USB.

I noticed that Paragon Adaptive Restore 2010 does recognize that there is "Unknown Operating System disk 0 partition 0 "System") and "Microsoft Windows 7 x64" (disk 0 partition 1 "Bootable"). However procedures available in that program (fixing booting) doesn't seem to do anything useful in this case. Is there some way to keep my Windows installation? I don't care if I have to buy a new hard drive.

 

[jimhoyle]

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 has Boot Corrector. That has "Windows installation to correct", "Correct MBR", "Correct boot parameters (boot.ini, BCD)". Those I ran, didn't show an error. But it didn't help. So I ran the last one "Correct EFI boot parameters". However, for that one, it doesn't find any Windows installations fo correct. That may be a clue. EFI boot parameters are somehow so messed up that they are not recognized? What can I try to analyze that?

 

[SIW2]

It is trying to start in bios mode. Was it originally in bios or efi? Most likely it was bios as you are using 3rd gen intel cpu.

If paragon can't recognize an installed os - that could be a sign the system hive is missing, or damaged. Do you have any shadow copies( restore points)

You could try my boot media. You can see what you are doing using that - and it has a lot of useful tools - including shadowcopyview.

17514x86.iso

17514x64-v9.iso

 

[jimhoyle]

Unfortunately I don't remember if it was originally BIOS or EFI. I installed Windows 7 in 2012 but I don't remember exactly what Windows setup version it was (except SP1 64-bit and Ultimate or something similar) and what I chose in BIOS/UEFI and installation settings. I don't know where to check that now.

I did try to restore old DEFAULT, SA, SECURITY, SYSTEM, SOFTWARE in the disk which is the large OS disk. Though I do not understand what the other small disk X:, also with X:\Windows\System32\config\DEFAULT etc. is.

I tried your nice boot disk. MsSystemRestore there says: "No restore points have been created". I know in the working Windows I had several restore points. NT6Repair3's GET SHADOWS says NO SHADOWS FOUND.

In addition to several days general tinkering, I have tried Macrium Reflect, Lazesoft Data Recovery Suite, Paragon Adaptive Restore, Paragon Hard Disk Manager, AOMEI Backupper. All give similar results: the OS is not found by certain tools and when doing some basic boot corrections, it finishes but doesn't help.

What to try next? Is there a way to do in-place upgrade to Windows 7 without booting in the real Win7? I was thinking about backing up and then migrate-restoring that to a new drive, but since Macrium Reflect's ReDeploy button didn't give me any useful results, I'm sceptical about that.

 

[SIW2]

Did you try shadowcopyview that I specifically mentioned in my post? Sometimes it will find shadowcopies when the system restore program and nt6repair can't. Unlikely, but it is worth a try.

You can't do a repair install unless you can boot into windows - OR if you have a shadow copy you can do a kind of manual repair install.


If you can't do either of those, you will need to do a fresh windows installation.

 

[jimhoyle]

Ahh, thanks, now I tried ShadowCopyView too. I can get it to find shadows on an old drive, but that's not the right drive. C: has no shadows. Even all files I have accessed separately seem fine.

I now found out another very interesting result: DiskGenius's SMART table does not show the Assesment column at all. But Ubuntu's SMART Data & Self-Tests does. And it shows that the 1 TB SSD drive in question has used-reserved-blocks-total = Failed in the past. So that has gone wrong sometime, possibly just before the corruption. I have no idea yet whether the culprit is the drive, motherboard or something else.

If this error is familiar to you, any advice is appreciated.

 

[SIW2]

I am not very familiar with that Ubuntu utility, but it doesn't sound encouraging.

I would use a new disk, clean install and then copy whatever is important from the old one

 

[jimhoyle]

Yep. Looks like the drive is partially unsalvageable. I had already done an AOMEI .adi backup so that it didn't complain anything and finished. However, now I backed up again, simply copying stuff in Explorer. Now I noticed that say 0.1% of files are busted (copying freezes). So the drive has been messed up for some reason.