SOLVED Win 10 crashes again

[Richard C]

Returned from 2 months away, switched on PC but Win 10 will not load & displays the message;

Your pc needs to be repaired

o/s could not be loaded because a file is missing or corrupt

file – fwpkclnt.sys

error code - 0xc00000e9

Need to use recovery tools or contact system admin.

Auto system repair doesn’t fix it. I tried booting a win 10 media disc but not sure it’s loading, it displays “preparing auto repair” but nothing happens & it just goes back to the above screen display. Not sure if it’s actually loading but the boot dvd option works & the drive is OK as my old win 7 disc loads the install files without any problems. I did get to a screen with PC reset options but neither worked, just a helpful message saying this pc cannot be reset! Incidentally a standby Win 7 o/s does boot although I get the "illegal software" message.

This is the second time Win 10 has suffered an unrecoverable crash in 4 months & last time I had to first reinstall Win 7 then upgrade using a newly created (on my laptop) win 10 media disc but it doesn’t seem to want to work this time, do they time expire? As an informed amateur I’ve been building & working with PC’s using all previous win versions for over 20 years & have never had a problem I couldn’t fix but Win 10 seems to be in a league of it’s own; flaky & less user friendly in problem situations than any previous versions except, perhaps, Millennium! On line searches didn’t really throw up anything meaningful or that I haven’t already tried. Anyone got any ideas?

Very tempted to dump windows 10 altogether & either go back to win 7, at least I can re-install that when it fatally crashes; or take my son-in-law's advice & get a MAC or android device!

 

[Saltgrass]

Were you running a third party anti-virus program? Does it have boot media or do you have a Recovery Drive or Install Media? You can download the latest version of Win 10 by using the Media Creation tool and selecting to download for another computer. Just watch bit versions and select Windows 10 whether you have Home or Pro.

Possibly, if you booted into Safe Mode you might be able to repair something or turn something off.

You can reinstall Windows 10 in a Clean configuration or with the correct media, possibly Reset in some fashion.

 

[Richard C]

Hi Saltgrass, thanks for your interest. I'm running AVG. I did try restoring to an old drive image I found & created when I first upgraded but it didn't like that either. O/S was originally a free on-line upgrade from Windows 7 but after that crashed & burned 4 months ago, I used the media creation tool to download, create & re-install the O/S onto a re-formatted HDD &, as I hadn't changed any hardware, it re-validated on line immediately & worked fine apart from the pain of having to re-install all my software! The O/S was working fine when I shut it down 2 months ago & the PC has been switched off since so I was very surprised to be met with a boot problem when I returned from my travels & switched it on again just 4 months after the last crash! After fiddling around & getting nowhere most of last night & this morning, I was resigned to having to do another re-instal & that's where I'm a little confused at the moment as the installation DVD I created 4 months or so ago doesn't seem to want to load the O/S instal files this time around but it boots to CD & Win 7 DVD loads up the instal files fine, that's why I'm wondering if the downloaded version of Win 10 has a date stamp in it & time expires after a certain date? Do I have to create a new instal disc again?

Unfortunately it won't boot to safe mode but I've never had much luck going that way in the past anyway. I haven't tried any 3rd party boot media so that might be worth a try.

 

[Saltgrass]

When you originally left the system was it shutdown or in hibernation? It would make a difference if the system had been waking up and doing updates. There was a build update around Aug. 1st and several cumulative updates after that.

I searched for the file you noted in your post and saw some references to it being firewall related and some anti-virus programs using it. I don't have it running on my system so I am assuming something loading at boot is looking for it. If you could get the system to boot into safe mode you might be able to work something out.

 

[Richard C]

Hi Saltgrass. The system was completely powered down & not left hibernating. Having only just returned from 2 months away, I've been very busy catching up on everything so this is the last thing I wanted. Luckily, I also have a laptop & have been able to revert to the standby Win 7 installation which I even managed to get re-validated by MS but it now seems very antiquated by comparison. I hope to be able to dedicate much more time to try & solve the problem later today or tomorrow but thanks for your continued input & if anyone else can add anything, I'd appreciate it. I will eventually post back on outcome.

 

[Richard C]

Everything I tried failed & I could not fix the fault so had to reinstall O/S, what an absolute pain! Interestingly, the install disc I made & used 4 months ago would not boot or do anything meaningful & I had to download & burn a new system disc - again, is there some sort of flag/date/time stamp on these downloads that renders them inoperable after one use or time expire? The new system disc booted first time & I tried the repair option from there but to no avail so just went with a new O/S install which immediately validated on-line no problem; at least MS seem to have that little niggle covered now! At least I'm now up & running again on Win 10 but what a pain having to re-install all my software. I hope this install lasts longer than 2 months but I've put it in a different partition just in case there is a problem developing with the hard drive & also going to invest in (another) desktop HDD to capture an image of the complete system drive. Thanks Saltgrass for your input.