Repair Windows Xp From Usb
Carlos Beirise
Sometimes a Windows 10 system starts misbehaving to the point where repair is needed. This often takes the form of worsening performance or stability, and can originate from damage to, loss of, or corruption of Windows system files (normally in the C:\Windows folder hierarchy). When that happens, users would be well advised to break out the following routine to help them set things back to rights.
The amount of time and effort required for each step goes up incrementally. Some steps involve additional work to get your PC more or less back to where it was prior to taking that step. Thus, the most important bit of advice I can dispense for those who must venture beyond Step 1 is this: make a complete backup of your system to provide a source for files and settings that might otherwise go missing. Ignore this at your own risk.
Even if errors were detected in the preceding step, this command should complete successfully. It replaces corrupt or questionable elements in the Windows Side-by-Side (WinSxS) store, reading from a local copy of your Windows image files by default.
The /restorehealth command can be tricky to use. Because it actually repairs a Windows image, it needs a source from which to attempt such repairs. You can omit the /source option, but if you do, the command will try to grab its files from Windows Update over the internet. This may or may not work, depending on firewall settings on your network.
The syntax for image files is where things can get interesting. To point to the install.wim file that shows up in ISO downloads for the Windows 10 or 11 installer on a USB flash drive designated L:, for example, you must use the following source specification (which uses the first image it finds inside the .wim file, designated :1):
Figure 3 shows sample output when SFC finds files in need of repair. If this occurs on your PC, repeat the SFC /scannow command until you see the clean bill of health shown in Figure 4. This seldom takes more than two or three tries (on the system shown in Figures 3 and 4, it took one repeat only).
For Windows 10 or 11, this technique essentially involves overwriting the current OS installation with a fresh new copy while leaving data files, settings, and preferences alone. That means running the Windows 10 or 11 installer for the same version/build currently running on the machine from inside Windows itself. As you will learn at the end of this section, this is markedly easier for Windows 11 than it is for Windows 10.
Before launching into this process, be sure to log in to Windows 10 with an administrative account. Most experts recommend that you disable or uninstall any third-party antivirus or security software (anything other than Windows Defender, in other words) and turn off Fast Boot and Secure Boot in your UEFI firmware settings (if turned on). You can reinstate these items when the in-place upgrade is complete.
Reset this PC is convenient and requires no supplementary media, but I prefer a more traditional approach: performing a clean Windows installation from a bootable USB drive or mounted ISO, covered next.
This option means starting over with a completely new OS installation. Why might this be necessary? Aside from reasons such as incurable system instability, malware infestation, or problems that take longer to fix than the time is worth, it may be desirable to switch from legacy BIOS emulation to using available UEFI. It might also be desirable to wipe the boot/system drive clean to remove leftover items (recovery partitions, OEM partitions, and so forth) from older Windows versions and let Windows start over with a clean slate.
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If the computer boots into Ubuntu automatically without showing the GRUB menu at all, sometimes you can press the manufacturer's BIOS/UEFI key at boot time and while in UEFI or BIOS mode from the firmware menus select the operating system you need. Common keys used are Esc, Delete, F1, F2, F10, F11, or F12. On tablets, common buttons are Volume up or Volume down. During startup, there's often a screen that mentions the key. If there's not one, or if the screen goes by too fast to see it, check your manufacturer's website.*
If this doesn't work when the GRUB menu does not appear at boot time, immediately after the motherboard / computer manufacturer logo splash screen appears when the computer is booting, with BIOS, quickly press and hold the Shift key, which will bring up a GNU GRUB menu screen. With UEFI press (perhaps several times) the Esc key to get to the GNU GRUB menu screen. Sometimes the manufacturer's splash screen is a part of the Windows bootloader, so when you power up the machine it goes straight to the GNU GRUB menu screen, and then pressing Shift is unnecessary.
Open the Boot Repair application and select Advanced Options -> Other Options tab -> Repair Windows boot files. The boot flag should be placed on the same partition on which Ubuntu is installed. The partition on which Ubuntu is installed can be identified from the Disks application which is built-in in Ubuntu.
Rescatux is a free bootable live CD/USB that can repair GRUB and the Windows bootloader. Rescatux has a graphical interface with a menu of operating system rescue tasks. If your hard disk has the MBR partitioning format, you can select the Restore Windows MBR (BETA) option to repair the Windows bootloader. If your computer has UEFI firmware, you can select among the UEFI boot options.
Insert a USB flash drive and check if the boot flag has been enabled on the flash drive using the GParted application. Unmount the USB flash drive. Open GParted and select the USB flash drive from the menu list of drives. From the GParted menu select: Partition -> Manage Flags -> check boot.
It is very important to verify that the device that you are installing the Rescatux live USB to is indeed your flash drive, so that you don't overwrite any of your system or personal files which may make your operating system unbootable. In Ubuntu you can find the device name of the flash drive using the Disks application.
On the pinned apps section on the left side of the Start menu, locate the Settings app. It's typically represented by a gear icon. Click the Settings app to open the Windows Settings app. You can also select the Settings app from the app list. Under Settings, click Update & Security to continue.
At this point, you have two options. You can either choose to keep your personal files and only remove downloaded apps and settings, or you can wipe everything and start from scratch. Each choice will also give you an additional setting to change.
If you choose Keep my files, apps and settings will default to what they were when the PC was brand new. This setting can be turned off by clicking the Change settings link and switching it off. If you choose Remove everything, there's also a way to remove your personal files while saving apps and settings. Click the Change settings link and toggle the Data erasure option to on.
Once you decide what should be removed from the computer, hit Next and Windows will tell you what will be deleted before you make a final decision. If you selected Keep my files, you can look at a list of apps that will be removed with the reset.
Finally, click Reset to actually commit. Your computer will restart, and after several minutes, it will boot back up again. When you return to Windows, you'll see that whatever you selected to be removed has been wiped from the machine. If you backed up your files, they can now be restored to the machine.
Reboot and you should see an entry titled "Windows (UEFI)" and if you select it then Windows should boot. If that does not work, please run boot info script ( ) and post the RESULTS.txt that it produces so that I have the information needed to give you proper advice.
If the OSs were installed in different modes, dual booting Windows and Ubuntu can't work. If your Windows is installed in BIOS mode, it is recommended to install your Ubuntu in BIOS mode, but if it's installed in UEFI mode, then do the same with Ubuntu. The easiest way to find out if you are running UEFI or BIOS is to look for a folder named /sys/firmware/efi. The folder will be missing if your system is using BIOS.
If you have installed Ubuntu in legacy mode on the same drive with GPT partitioning, you can use Boot Repair's Advanced options to uninstall grub-pc and install grub-efi-amd64. That converts the Ubuntu installation from BIOS boot to UEFI boot, the same firmware as most recently manufactured laptops with Windows pre-installed have.
Set up your BIOS so that it boots the hard drive in UEFI mode. The way to adjust this setting depends on the specific model of the computer, but generally this setting is located in the boot priority settings under the Boot tab of the BIOS/UEFI setup utility.
The already installed Windows OS wasn't detected when you installed Ubuntu. os-prober from the default Ubuntu repositories detects other OSs available on a system and outputs the results in the terminal. If os-prober doesn't work, check if the command sudo fdisk -l is able to find the Windows partition.
Make sure you boot in UEFI mode. Use sudo efibootmgr -t nn to utilize your EFI's menu. You can choose Windows Boot Manager or ubuntu (GRUB).
NOTICE: Windows will erase GRUB installation at its own EFI system partition each time BOOTMGR is updated.