Windows 8 Won’t Boot after Windows Update

I am currently investigating an issue that deals with Windows 8 Updates. When I run Windows Update, and Reboot, the system hangs at the black screen with the blue logo and white spinning circle. If I turn off the machine, and reboot, it tries to go into Automatic Repair mode, which also hangs. Luckily I had the 1 to 7 USB duplicator plugged in while I was performing an important task. It automatically transferred a few files and saved them on a backup drive.

After much frustration, I tried a Windows Refresh, which also didn’t work, it wouldn’t even try to do it. I tried a System Restore, which rolls back changes, and this did work leaving my updates uninstalled.

I thought this had to do with me enabling Hyper-v at the same time that I had done a Windows update, but apparently that is not the case, though when rolling back changes this also thankfully unset itself. I tried doing just the windows updates, without enabling hyper-v, and am again presented with the loading screen. My next step is to install each update one by one to find the culprit.

The thing is, while it is hanging, the hard drive light stays on solid, and does blink every so often. The blink has no real pattern…so it is doing something, but it just never completes. I am thinking about leaving it on overnight before doing another System Restore.

I will update this blog as I get more info.

10/28/2012 4:42 AM EST Update

It just takes a REALLY Long time and has no status indicator of what the hell it’s doing, even on a Quad Core Machine, with SSD and 24 GB of RAM. Windows booted up…Talk about User Hostile…now to test if Hyper V enabling was the actual culprit.

10/28/2012 5:19 AM EST Update

Going to bed, looks like it may be the Hyper V After all…it is still spinning, doesn’t look like it is doing anything.

10/28/2012 9:17 AM EST Update

Windows Booted! I left it running during my…short…sleep…and apparently it just takes a really really long time to configure Hyper V. So, don’t get discouraged, as long as that circles is still moving, your system should actually be doing something. Rebooting too quickly is probably a bad habit from windows days of yore, where we are used to seeing a crash every other day if it looks like it is doing nothing.

Now to play around with Hyper V, need to get a working copy of Windows 7 and Windows XP running so I can do design work for IE8 and IE9. Wish I could just run the browsers separately…

10/28/2012 10:24 AM EST Update

Although it did boot, it slowed down to a crawl, nothing would open. I restarted…and it hanged again. No way can I deal with an hour+ boot time.

Tried a system restore and this time it didn’t work. I had to go to “Automatically fix Problems” in the DVD, for it to tell me things were so bad that it needed to do a System Restore. When it did the restore it used a different process that was faster, rebooted, and I am in…now to test more rebootings. This time Windows Updates are still installed, but Hyper V is disabled.

10/28/2012 10:57 AM EST Update

Apparently, now my system won’t boot unless I remove all my USB peripherals including mouse.

10/28/2012 12:34 AM EST Update

Still having boot issues. System runs fine if it actually loads. I have found others on the Microsoft Support forums having similar issues, all are reporting it occurs after running windows update. I am uninstalling my windows updates to see if it works. I;d recommend to hold off on running those windows updates for now. Oh, and turn off automatic updates.

Sometimes Windows will boot, sometimes it wont, it seems to be tied to USB devices, and USB Devices being connected to the PC. Must be something that came with the update.

10/28/2012 10:24 PM EST Update

I managed to boot Windows and uninstalled the updated. I then had to use my DVD to do a System Restore in order to start booting in again. Thinking of installing the updates one at a time to see which is the cause of the increased boot time, but will have to wait till next weekend. Will run Windows 8 as it is during the work week since it boots now.

Considering creating a restore image.

11/2/2012 3:08 AM EST Update

I must be a sucker for punishment. I have been playing the Windows Update game of Russian Roulette after a year of running it without ever updating it. I guess I Actually want to try 8.1 I was slightly successful; I got many updates in doing them one at a time…there are just so so many.

So I got impatient…and tried doing all the “Update for Windows” at the same time. All of them failed but one…KB2871777, which sent my computer into the spinning screen cycle. Fortunately I have been doing System Restore points before every update. Leaving it spin in endless circles until I can play with it tomorrow. My windows 8 boot disk isn’t even letting it boot into recovery at the moment which kind of scares me. Makes me want to go fix my Arch Linux install too…(also Busted due to updates)

11/3/2012 11:11 PM EST Update

Apparently the side effect of Windows Update freezing on boot after updates had to do with extra hard drives plugged in that may be bad…

After a weekend of 2 hour boot times and random programs not opening, unplugged the drives and it immediately booted and started working as normal with the updates installed. I even unplugged them while the machine was on!

I downloaded the one update that’s needed for 8.1 and installed without a problem, now 8.1 is installing! Hope it works!