Rebooting during sign on

[JBoldtimer]

Hi, I didn't see a thread that seemed to cover what is happening on my desktop ...

About 1 or 2 months ago I up graded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. It was an "over the air" install, so I have no boot media. Everything worked fine initially.
Today, when my wife moved the mouse to unlock the screen, it went to the logon screen, but before she could put the cursor in the password entry field, the PC began rebooting.

After that, every time she got to the logon screen, she could not see a mouse cursor and had no response from any keyboard entry attempts.

She is REALLY worried that we have lost everything!

I can see no error messages, but before I can try to enter my password, the reboot kicks in .

Any help would be appreciated ... My PC skills are a bit rusty, but I can follow checklists and am comfy with DOS commands from a command line ... (Old FORTRAN guy!)

Thanks!

 

[Trouble]

Hello and welcome to the forum.
Can you try, at the sign-in screen......
Holding the Shift key on your keyboard, while using the power icon on the sign-in screen and selecting restart.
That should get you to a group of screens where you should be able to navigate to Safe Mode

 

[JBoldtimer]

Thank you, Even though the mouse cursor disappeared when I got to the sign on screen, holding the shift button and pressing Enter took me to a "Recovery" screen.

I selected "see advanced repair options" and it took me to the "Choose an option" screen from which I was able to follow your steps.

I was able to boot into Safe Mode successfully. I got a blue dialog box reading "This app can't open ... Get Started can't be opened using the Built-in Administrator account. sign in with a different account and try again."

Unfortunately, I think I only have one account on this computer.

So, I closed the dialog box and did a "normal" Shut down from the "Windows" icon in the task bar, Power>Shut down

After it shut down, I waited 30 seconds and tried to restart normally.

I got the same problem I had initially, but was able to again boot into safe mode.

Can I do anything to restore normal use from Safe Mode?

Thank you again for helping me.

Regards,

John

 

[Trouble]

Don't worry about the "This App can't run" stuff, that is typical in safe mode as none of the universal apps seem to like safe mode or safe mode with networking at all.
There are any number of things that you can try while in safe mode.
You can first...
Add a new user as a member of the administrators group
Go to
C:\Windows\System32
Find
Cmd.exe
Right click it and choose run as administrator
At the admin command prompt type
net user JohnSmith /add
hit enter
then type
net localgroup administrators JohnSmith /add
hit enter
type
exit
hit enter
Restart and log in as JohnSmith
Obviously it doesn't have to be "JohnSmith" but since you will likely be getting rid of the user sometime in the future I wouldn't be overly concerned with what I called it.

That may at least allow you to determine if the problem is global or unique to your user profile.

Additionally, you should be able to perform a system restore from the Advanced Options screen I attached above.
Going back to a point in time, prior to the problem first occurring might remedy a driver issue or possible registry corruption

 

[JBoldtimer]

Great Scott ... I think I found the problem ...

Following your guidance, as soon as I typed the first key from the command line, I got a blue screen (not the BSOD) and a message popped up afte a second or 2 saying "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (Kbdclass.sys)"

Kbd? Keyboard driver???

I have an older Microsoft Wireless Comfort Keyboard 5000 ... Maybe the old keyboard was not fully compatible with the new keyboard driver ... Worth a try ...

I pulled out my spare USB keyboard that I use when I travel for work and Lo! the system came up without error ... I could have sworn I heard it chuckle ...

Thank you for all your time and effort! Your troubleshooting steps led me to the right solution!

I'll go get a new wireless keyboard ...

Regards,

John

 

[Trouble]

Interesting.....
kbdclass.sys is a relatively benign, generic keyboard driver that is generally part of the Windows OS along with kbdhid.sys
I'm wondering if you installed some older software package that might have overwritten the normal driver with something older.
In any event, glad that you have it sorted now.
I'm not a big fan of wireless input devices (keyboards and mice) so good luck with your future shopping and see if you can find something that claims to be Windows 10 compatible
Thanks again for keeping us updated on your findings.