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I've got Win10 installed on a Toshiba core i7 laptop. HDD is partitioned for dual boot with Kali Linux 4.9.0 AMD64.
I've been using the Linux install to try to repair the win10 install (native). I've created rescue disks of all sorts. I've used Windows Media Creation Tool to create win10 ISO install disk and I've used Rufus 3.4.
The USB will start to boot; splash screen shows with circling dots as if booting but then screen goes black/blank and nothing further happens.
When trying to boot from HDD straight, which is original problem after a rather untimely crash last week, Toshiba splash screen shows then a hard reboot occurs and once up again the windows splash screen shows with "Preparing Automatic Repair" and the circling dots but then * poof -- black/blank screen... nothing.
I've been looking at the bootmgfw.efi and/or the bootx64.efi files, would like to know if I'm looking at correct root of the problem. How would I replace those files if corrupted?... using access via Linux boot.
RobbTom
Posted 2019-03-01T01:29:43.480
Reputation: 1
1How did you get linux to install in the first place, usually uses a live USB/DVD, that doesn't work anymore? Have any bios settings been changed since then? – Xen2050 – 2019-03-01T02:44:59.800
The USB drive is working and serves as medium for installing live Linux install, but it just exhibits same behavior as windows on my HDD. I've changed settings back n forth between CSM and UEFI ... in attempts to work out issues with recognizing the data on the USB drive. That, I think, is actually how I had broke the Linux install once - it caused the grub to crap out and I had to fix the grub. But that was the only BIOS setting that I've changed. It's now set back to original UEFI setting. – RobbTom – 2019-03-02T12:36:55.353
Hmmm, one way or the other it should boot. If it's a strange mystery problem, perhaps the bios battery is dying (some laptops still have them) and settings are going wonky...? Or something else could be failing, yet the installed linux still boots... strange – Xen2050 – 2019-03-02T12:40:39.607
additionally, when I checked out and tried to mount the Windows partition, it says that the drive was left in an unstable state: loop ... ?? Is there a way for me to change the state or the reading of the state of the partition/drive? – RobbTom – 2019-03-03T16:18:24.737
Windows can leave an NTFS drive un-mountable by linux, I don't remember the details but it's a common problem, I'm not sure how to fix it if you can't boot windows, maybe a windows install/repair disk might help, but definitely search for that problem – Xen2050 – 2019-03-03T17:27:38.620
It looks like I'm gonna have to wipe my drive and reinstall EVERYTHING! Sorry azz Windows!! But first I'll have to save my data to a Win8.1 machine I've got here - 14GB at a time using a 16GB USB stick. Dunno where a whole 2GB goes from a blank USB drive...?? – RobbTom – 2019-03-04T16:25:29.793
You mean how the drive manufacturers give sizes in bytes (1,000,000,000 bytes = their "gigabyte") and software gives sizes in 1024 bytes, 1024K, 1024M, so 1,073,741,824 bytes is a "gigabyte", aka the strange (unpopular) gibibyte? That's been common for decades. Anyway, another windows computer should be able to mount / fix the drive, just connect it to another windows computer. Or
testdiskmight be able to copy some files, if anything's worth recovering first. – Xen2050 – 2019-03-04T18:27:29.143