Advice Please - Win10 PC Corrupted So that I Can't Get Past Login

[Bruce]

Re-opened for further comment.

[PeterOz]

Now that you are running.
Think about post #10

[EugenioB]

PeterOz,
Just attempted Post#10.
See attached photo.

[PeterOz]

As I thought earlier.
I suspect that two or more drives were connected when the original install was performed.
And the windows files are across two drives.

[EugenioB]

PeterOz,
I’m quite sure that the 2TB data drive was the only other disk physically present at the time of OEM hardware installation and configuration. To my recollection, when the machine was received there was one single, totally empty partition on that drive. There is still only one single partition on that drive now, and since 2011 that drive has only been filled - never reformatted.
What checks would confirm for you my conviction that no part of Windows resides on the 2TB data drive? If I’m wrong, then surely there should be some folders containing system files to be found, somewhere.

[Bastet]

Open disk management to check if there’s EFI, system reserved &/or recovery partition on any of the other drives.

[EugenioB]

Nope, no such thing on any of the internal ones. TeraServe drive I is external, and USB connected.

[Bastet]

Thanks. Then a clean install is needed to restore the partitions imo then restore the image via the Macrium boot media - delete the C partition on the destination drive & drag & drop the C partition from the source to the destination.

[PeterOz]

Do you know if your drive C is GPT or MBR

[EugenioB]

PeterOz,
No, I do not.
Could you please let me know how to discover this?

[PeterOz]

Open Cmd as admin.
Type in Diskpart press enter
type in list disk press enter
Last column is GPT does it have an *
To leave disk part
Type in exit press enter.
At the cmd prompt type in exit press enter

[EugenioB]

PeterOz,
No “*” showing, for any disk.

[EugenioB]

To anyone who might be still “listening” on this thread, I thought you might like to hear that, as of this afternoon, I’m out of the woods, and my problem is completely solved. I’m now running Windows 11, from a boot drive containing all of the partitions which Windows requires. I have an image backed up, and I’m working on a procedure which will ensure that a recent backup of the OS/Apps drive is always available.

I went through quite a few trials and tribulations over a whole week to carry out a seemingly simple operation (save a partition image, reinstall Windows, restore that partition as the main one of the boot drive). I won’t bore everyone in the Forum by detailing exactly what happened, but if people want to message me directly, I’m happy to recount any or all of it. Suffice to say that I’ve been forced to learn a lot, over the last 15 days.

I want to thank everyone who tried to help me with my initial problem, especially Bastet and PeterOz.
Regards to all.

[Bastet]

Great to hear you’re ‘out of the woods’.
I take it clean installing Windows then just restoring the C/Windows partition didn’t work. If you want to pm me with the story then feel free to do so as I’m interested in hearing what the solution was.

[PeterOz]

I’m interested in hearing what the solution was.

Same with me.
If you post it here others can learn.