bad winPE / wim re or whatever it is

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try to safe boot(to get at win boot menu to try to suss which winPE it is using): F8 or F11 at start does nothing.

Hold shift while click restart in start menu boots to “please wait while we install a system update”

try to create a boot stick with AOMEI or windows-11-recovery-rescue-boot-stick. same result.

either my recovery partition or my first FAT partition on SSD needs to be fixed but no idea how.

My last few posts of this thread got way OT for that thread and pertain to this post. https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/please-wait-system-update-when-booting-macrium-rescue-stick/#post-2427794

 

EDIT I presume this was what I get for updating win10 to 11. It added a new recovery partition and apparently it didn’t quite fix it or the first FAT partition in the disk. Only fix I know of would be to completely start over on a brand new disk and create win 11 first. That would be hell.

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I had tried a bunch of things like modifying c:/boot so restored to before that.

I removed grub and so now boot immediately to win 11 but still same prob so need help replacing the extant bad wim. or winPE or wim re or whatever it is that these programs use to create a winPE bootable stick.

Thanks!

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This article has a nice rundown on creating an ISO from winre.win. Use winre.wim from an ISO from MS.
Boot from that will confirm the issue is with your machine. If it is then a reinstall may be in order – try a non-destructive first.

cheers, Paul

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most of those files don’t exist for me. that is old.

I think the answer is in https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/get-started/adk-install . I downloaded adkwinpesetup.exe and installed it at one point back there but there are no instruction on what to do with the kits that it creates and how to put it where win can use it as the default wim.

Where exactly is the default wim that is used to create these bootable sticks. I tried changing things in c:/boot but had no effect. There is no wim in c:/recovery . Or is it using the recovery partition? If I had a clue to that, that would help. google gives me no joy. Much old info out there.

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First – check your BIOS settings. You wouldn’t be the first to be caught by corrupt settings due to a failing battery which isn’t quite flat and the relatively simple error checking on that information.

As to the check, I assume you can make Windows in some form. Try to back up. That done why not use fsutil to set the dirty bit and let Windows sort the issue out, as I’ve had using mountvol and chkdsk hit unexpected issues.

WineRE.wim is basically the boot.wim from the sources folder on the install media with modifications made specific to your hardware (which is a further pointer to there being a hardware or hardware configuration change) so in theory you might get away with copying that archive, removing and “write only” (attrib -r) , and using DISM, mount the image and use the /add-driver to add drivers for your installation extracted with PNPUtil (as if you can get unto Windows, those must work..) and unmount (with commit) the archive and place that as your recovery WIM (but of course keep the original! Hopefully the first suggestion fixed things and you don’t need to get this far..)

The next suggestion is both technical and horrible. If you have bitlocker you’ll need the recovery key. The situation in previous Windows versions (I haven’t got 11)  is that the true WinPE generated from the Windows deployment tools the installer for  doesn’t do anything with a drive until it’s told to. Seems likely you’ve downloaded that and probably need to install (untick the experience kit and all that ancillary tools, the PE tools are usually in C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment)

This is more useful as the recovery environments will rummage all the controllers and attempt to locate drives and mount file systems before the interface is started- which could be the issue. Of course the same applies if you have a running OS and you plug in your problem drive into that system in a caddy so if you have a system backup and a spare drive…

In either of those cases you need to supply a recovery key to gain access if the volume is bitlocker protected (you’ll have to use manage-BDE to mount the volume in the PE) but should be free to attempt to fix the issue with chkdsk without being locked out as Windows tries to fix it for you..

I guess the other route is have you tried the recovery media for the OS you upgraded from just in case there’s some sort of legacy issue lurking in the boot that could correct?

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Try the steps in Win RE from my website.  Page one is old info such as you’ve found already.  The nitty-gritty starts with page 2, which is the link.

It was written for Windows 10 but works exactly the same way with Windows 11.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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a

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This is excellent but I got stuck on insufficient space. Note that “vol 1” is the old recovery partition from win 10 and “vol 4” which is hidden, is the recovery partition created and I believe used by win11.

edit note there is 89MB free on the 730MB partition, and 84MB free on the old 505MB partition. New winre is 491MB.

cmds so far, attached

possibly delete or replace the extant winre that is there: (image is screenshot of easeus partn mgr explore on the 730 recovery partition):

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a wrote:

possibly delete or replace the extant winre that is there

That’s what I would do.  I’ve done it before.  WinRE.wim may resist deletion.  You may need to use your partitioning tool to delete the partition then recreate it as an MSR partition.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

1 user thanked author for this post.

a

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SUCCESS!

Yes, I remember del being less than useful (read “worthless”). If you look at my cmds (attached) you will see me trying the linux rm command which with -r and -f would get rid of anything (wishful thinking!)

When I accepted that del wouldn’t do it, I fired up Easeus Ptn Mgr, but that wouldn’t do it, so fired up AOMEI Ptn Assistant, and with that I was able (double click on bar for that partition) to delete just the old winre.wim. then I proceeded with your instructions to the end.

Note that info said that re was not enabled, yet it works just fine. The boot to recovery in win 11 is apparently what I was told for win 11 safe mode: hold shift while click on restart – last time it booted to that bad update message. This time it booted to:
I also created a new AOMEI recover stick and this time it worked perfectly! SUCCESS!

Key takaways for me: “default” winre.wim is on the recovery partition AND it is activated with “reagentc /setreimage /path z:windowsre” and “reagentc /enable” . which I would never have known about unless you mentioned it and that was exactly WHAT I was looking for.

Many thanks!!!!!!! Yes, you are indeed an MVP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rest of commands txt file is attached. (with all my errors and typos!!!!!)

Note: an alternatative to deleting that recovery partition would simply be to format it – easily done with any partition mgr, and preserves the partition numbering that linux often relies on in its fstab file.

Note: the creation and boot of a system recovery boot stick also now worked correctly!

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bbearren

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PS: On a redo of this, since I was unable to put grub back on the drive and thus restored a few partitions back a few days so had to do it all over (except I now had the correct winRE.wim ! ). AOMEI ptn assist upgraded and no longer allowed me to even explore that partition, let alone delete the old winRE.wim, so I used Easeus Ptn Mgr and simply reformatted that partition to NTFS and voila, lots of space. I then just quickly did the copy and other commands and of course all worked perfectly.

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