So I am the primary computer support person for my mom, even though (a) I am many hundreds of miles away and (b) I stopped getting paid for hands-on desktop support decades ago.
Mom apparently hit some sort of glitch with one of those oh-so-convenient Windows 10 updates that left her sitting indefinitely with white dots spinning around a black background. Cycling power left her in the same sitch.
She spent the better part of the day on the phone with Microsoft, the end of which seems to have been, "Your Windows is screwed up, you need to either take your PC to the nearest Microsoft Store to do the following things, or else get a friend to come over with another machine to download an installation media copy of Windows 10, copy it to a flash drive, and then call us back and we will walk you through how to do "a clean install or your data".
(1) Having my mom disconnect all the cables, and take the tower to the closest Microsoft Store, about 30 miles away, then come back and reconnect it is probably not practical.
(2) Mom doesn't have a lot of (any) friends who could come over with a computer and create a flash drive installation setup. And I would worry about her being able to install from that, even with MS on the phone.
(3) The odd phrase from Mom's notes "a clean install or your data" makes no sense, and she doesn't remember specifically what they said there.
But I am interpreting this as they are recommending doing a clean install of Windows 10 which will wipe out her existing applications and data.
This is highly problematic, as I have grave doubts (as does she) of being able to reinstall all her apps, reconfigure the machine to look like what it was, nor (even though her data is safe with Backblaze) easily copy her data to the new setup.
Waiting until Christmas for me to fly out there is probably not the right idea. Nor can I fly out there right now and take care of this for her.
She's calling MS again to get clarified what that final note should have been, but working on the assumption that what MS is suggesting is doing a clean install …
Well, there are three questions:
1. Does this Microsoft recommendation sound correct? I have no idea if the tech involved was a genius or some yokel reading from a script. Does it sound plausible? (To me, unfortunately, it does.)
2. Am I correct in recalling that a clean Windows install involves essentially reformatting the hard drive, requiring a full reinstallation of apps and restore of data?
3. Any brilliant ideas on what's to be done?
Note that we are not talking about a lot of apps — Quicken is one (I believe she has the discs for that, and the install key is probably lurking in her email somewhere). Chrome (which will get back her browser and its settings and bookmarks). Open Office (or LibreOffice). And for data we're talking about a relatively small amount. But having her do it is not going to be pretty, nor is my trying to walk her through it all remotely, and doing a Friday-night-to-Sunday-afternoon emergency flight out there to do it hands-on — well, that may turn out to be the answer (at least for the restore), but I couldn't do it for another week, which would allow physical delivery of the backup media from Backblaze, and …
… well, it's still not going to be pretty.
For ms, the answer is always reformat and reinstall. If you had another tech savvy person nearby, they could mount your mom's hdd to another computer to copy the data off. I know of no way in which you can do a reinstall with reformatting.
Good luck!
Cheaper than a flight: buy a laptop with Windows 10. Install all updates and install the apps your mom needs. Restore her data from backblaze. Ship the laptop to her and tell her you will deal with the dead computer at Christmas.
Sounds like a +Les Jenkins questions to me.
There are a couple of things they could be talking about. Obviously, formatting/reinstalling Windows is the nuclear option.
Windows 8 introduced the System Refresh option which saves your docs and settings but otherwise reinstalls Windows and blows away your apps.
And then there's the system restore function, which I'm sure you're familiar with.
I don't recall which, if any, of these are available without the installation media.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17085/windows-8-restore-refresh-reset-pc
+Nick McIntosh Where is your mom? We could maybe crowdsource a techie near her to go and handle it for her.
Edit: pinged the wrong person originally. App won't allow me to fix it. Sorry for the mix-up.
Why do you never call me? 😀
Can you remote in and see if you can fix it without a reinstall?
+Marla Caldwell For a moment I was really confused.
+Nick McIntosh sorry about that. It wouldn't allow me to remove your name or to tag +Dave Hill.
+Dave Hill where is your mom located?
+Nick McIntosh The moments get longer.
1. Remove and ship you HD. Finagle that and restore/rebuild Windows.
2. Buy her a Mac.
3. Install Linux. Install VNC + SSH. Install VirtualBox. Put Windows on VirtualBox and stash a reserve known good install image.
She can still run WIndows under VirtualBox, and if all she's doing is Quicken, etc., that's going to be pretty good. If it gets hosed, you can remote in via SSH, with VNC if necessary, and fix it.
Use keys, not passwords. Put up a solid firewall, and fail2ban.
Hate to ask the basics.
Can she get into any kind of recovery menu at all?
What model of PC?
Did she run the built-in Hardware Diagnostics if available?
I probably have an ISO or you should be able to download one and then mail her the flash drive to boot from…
In the meantime you can buy a $100 Chromebook and have it shipped quick 🙂
Okay, so I had this exact thing happen to me Tuesday night (my windows machine ran an update while we were playing the Star Wars game, and got stuck in the spinning circles thing.)
So, next morning, with the circles still spinning, I rebooted and hit F12 at startup to get a boot menu.
The first time I did it, I selected Windows Boot manager and got the same spinning circle jazz.
Rebooted again, hit f12 again, and a Windows blue screen came up with "windows updated seems to have failed. What do you want to do?" and one of the options was "revert to previous version of windows (meaning the version from just before the update ran).
I selected that, and an hour later I was back to a fully functional machine, sans update.
There is, unfortunately, no practical way to keep windows from running updates automatically.
Get her a Chromebook? Should do most stuff except quicken. And will probably be cheaper then flying there
Yeah, I was going to suggest getting her a cheap interim laptop too.
Setting up a Win10 install, without losing data, over the phone… sure, it can be done. But it will be a lot of pain for everybody involved.
Alternative: Make a liveCD USB stick with a remote access app, and send it by mail. You can even do a Win10 stick, if needed, so that restore can at least be attempted.
Refreshing the OS will probably lose some apps, but might not lose everything.
This is why it's so upsetting that Windows stopped packaging installation media with new computers by default.
I'm pretty familiar with the recovery process on Windows 7 and 8, but I don't have my Windows 10 wings yet. Still, assuming that the process isn't too different…
Can you find the .iso image of the install media your mom needs and burn it to a DVD (if she has an optical drive) or USB stick at your own house, then ship her that disc or flash drive? Then you and/or the technician from Microsoft can walk her through the process of booting to the install media and using the recovery options available there.
If that doesn't work, then unfortunately, formatting the hard drive and installing the OS from scratch is probably the only option left.
Also, why are people assuming that you can get a whole new laptop and ship it to your mom for cheaper than the cost of a flight? Do you live across an ocean from her or something?
+Jon Porobil There is a Win10 media creation tool online from Microsoft. It's actually very good (as in, it works for users, and it can be used also by techs – it allows you to download the iso so you can rufus it).
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
There are some pretty cheap laptops out there nowadays. Having a spare can't even be said to be a waste. I think we're assuming finding the time to fly out there is the bigger hurdle.
I agree with Brian: if you can budget it, you can get a Windows laptop for under $200 and get her working again until you can do a real fix.
Generally, if you can get anywhere in Windows 8.1 or 10's control panel, there is a way to repair the installation. And with a media boot disk, it should be pretty trivial. That said, it is possible it's screwed up past this point. In which case, I think your assumption of a full wipe is unfortunately quite accurate.
You'll likely be able to pull off retaining data, but you will probably be reinstalling all the applications. Thankfully OS installation is smoother than ever, but reinstalling apps is a still a pain.
You said it's a tower? That makes things tougher. If it were a laptop or the like, I'd say just have her mail it to you. A tower makes that a pricier proposition.
There is a boot loop problem going around : http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/628603/stuck-in-a-boot-loop-cant-repair-startup-use-restore-point-or-reset-pc/
+Doyce Testerman Mrs and I had a similar experience with our laptops. After several cycles of power down, power up, and waiting, I finally got a "restoring previous version of Windows". Then then auto booted and we're back to normal.
+Brian Holt Hawthorne I've been toying with some variations of that idea, but, yeah, we may go that route.
+Les Jenkins I figured you'd see this thread sooner or later. 🙂
+Marla Caldwell She's in the LA area. Crowdsourcing a techie might work as a possibility — not sure how comfortable she would feel about it, but I'll put that on the list of options.
She's also going back to the fellow who built her machine in the first place to see if he has any solutions or anything he can do.
Short version of what I posted already: if you shut down the install and reboot a couple of times, I believe the system will realize that the update didn't work and offer to revert to the previous version and everything will be fine. It may be that simple.
I honestly don't think that the F12 menu I did during the boot up did anything at all. I think it was just Windows realizing the install was pooched.
+Edward Morbius That's actually probably beyond my own capabilities to do, and might be overkill for her at this point. But noted.
+Doug Dunfee I have not done any hands-on (or her-hands-on) detailed diagnosis. This escalated from weird-but-not-alarming Windows update problems to "I've been on the phone with Microsoft all day and my computer is dead" problems (and last night was probably not the time to walk through a diagostics session).
+Les Jenkins has given me some info to pursue in terms of trying to get into the repair / refresh modes that others have referenced here. If I get a chance or have the opportunity to do so, I'll see what develops there.
+Doug Dunfee A Chromebook has a lot of appeal to it, but I'm not sure that trying to shift Mom away from Windows at this point will be a starter. (There's also the Quicken thing, and the files, but those are more implementation details.)
But along those lines, the "cheap Windows notebook" idea mentioned elsewhere is not a bad one if necessary. Have Backblaze ship the backup medium to me, have Mom send me the Quicken discs, and I could probably make that work. And, yes, easier than my flying out there (for everyone concerned).
+Doyce Testerman That's something I can try, pending learning exactly what state the machine was left in.
It also, unfortunately, sounds like something that the MS techs would have tried which is part of what has me worried. But, then, I certainly can't assume that.
+Dave Hill there should be plenty of techies in that area who could correct the failed install, rebuild with a remote management option as Edward suggested, or back up her data and do a fresh install with her applications. I get that crowdsourcing may be a bit uncomfortable, and would definitely want some sort of trusted referral or vouching before I'd send anyone to my mom (who is no more comfortable with computers than yours).
On the other hand, maybe the guy who built it for her can resolve the issue and the point will be moot. Let us know if that fails and you want to try the crowdsource option.
+Jon Porobil The laptop thing is probably going to be more expensive, yes, but not necessarily that much more expensive than a flight would end up being (in a variety of ways).
Agreed about the Windows media thing. What you're suggesting sounds a lot like what what Microsoft was suggesting. I've generated the media like that before — with two computers in the household. It remains on the list of options, though.
+Gary Roth We discussed the drop-ship-it-to-me option. We have extra keyboards/monitors here, so that part would be covered. It's still an option on the table.
Pulling the data off shouldn't be an issue; she's covered by Backblaze, so we would just need to order a backup medium.
+Andreas Geisler Hmm. Good spot. http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-on-windows-10-anniversary-install-fail-were-finalizing-a-fix/ sounds closer to it.
+Dave Hill The others here have a point: There is a way, through repeated reboots, to kick the machine into failure recovery.
That might not be too hard to walk her through over the phone.
+Doyce Testerman Well, that sounds like the easiest of initial options to try first, depending on what state the machine has been left by MS.
+Marla Caldwell Will do, thanks. And, yes, even if that guy can't help, there are probably other avenues of local hands-on tech who might be able to fix it. That option will stay on the table.
Thanks, everyone here — lots of great answers / options to pursue, some of them less painful sounding than I originally feared. I'll report back as the situation changes.
Thanks again.
Mom got MS to send their recommendations by email:
—
Things needed to do:
– Download ISO file of windows 10 using other computer (ISO file is the Installation file of windows 10)
– Put it into a flash drive or disc (for it to be booted to other pc that need to be repaired)
Options :
Repair – Just repairing the computer and files will be removed
Clean Install – Files and application will be deleted on this process
—
Which is, of course, what a number of people here have noted.
The text phrasing under "Repair" is a bit odd — does that actually remove file/applications?
Isn't there a "Refresh" option (I believe it is), or is that not part of what the ISO install file provides?
Refresh is definitely an option under the Advanced Boot menu if you can get to it. That one reinstalls Windows while leaving your files in place. Applications will need to be reinstalled. I don't know if the ISO offers it as well, but I'd be very surprised if it didn't. I've not tried the ISO route yet.
Repair is the one I did. It just blows away the update and reverts to the pre-update version.
So my mom called a friend who long ago used to provide her some computer support, and he came over and, apparently, was able to get in and, after a number of reboots, managed to apparently get it to repair itself. (Which lines up with some of the advice given above.)
So … it seems, for the moment, that all is well. Though Mom is doubting Win10 and is considering trying to revert to Win7.
I would not encourage her to downgrade. Windows 10 is, in my honest opinion, one of the best versions of Windows so far in spite of some issues. Windows 7 had it's fair share of occasional problems with updates not unlike what she just experienced so there's nothing to say that downgrading would guarantee it wouldn't happen again. I feel the benefits Windows 10 brings to the table outweigh any problems that come with it.
It's a complex OS and it's impossible to guarantee every update will go smoothly because of the immense variety of hardware and software it has to contend with.