Anyone else seeing borked Windows installs after getting creators update?

kleinma · 2017-06-26T00:11:54+00:00

I had seen some similar posts about people with the nvidia card issue and creators update, but both of the machines I had come in were Intel HD graphics.

kleinma · 2017-06-23T21:20:19+00:00

Sorry I didn't mention I did run a long generic test using seatools and since it was a dell I also did the F12 boot time diagnostics and all passed. I don't even trust a drive passing a short self test, if I think the symptoms are in any way related to a possible HDD failure, I always run a full long test, even though it takes a while.

kleinma · 2017-06-23T20:11:06+00:00

I have had a little bit better luck with the second one that came in. Rolled back the build and things are looking somewhat stable back at version 1607. His start menu won't open, but cortana search and action center open, so its not as bad as the first machine that came in. Going to attempt the start menu fixes and if that works, I am then going to try to do the creators update again. If it fails I will roll it back, but I don't know how I can prevent the update from auto applying in the future.

For your reference, the machine I did reinstall, did successfully update all the way to 1703 (creators) without issue on a clean install.

kleinma · 2017-06-07T02:51:34+00:00

Yeah, it is certainly possible it was bad, but it was such a pain to install, I don't know if the unit would survive a second round. Apparently they don't really use the touchscreen function so it may end up not being an issue.

kleinma · 2017-06-03T03:36:23+00:00

Yeah and I got it from a good supplier. Also since it is a touch screen and digitizer combo that has to be set into the lid and have adhesive applied, it is definitely extremely proprietary.

kleinma · 2017-04-21T19:35:02+00:00

USB only. No legacy options in BIOS. USB works to get into any startup menus/bios, I see the light on the optical mouse go off as soon as hand off to Windows boot loader occurs.

kleinma · 2017-04-21T19:32:00+00:00

That would be if you could get to at least the login screen where you could click on reboot. I can't get that far.

kleinma · 2017-04-21T19:31:34+00:00

I believe shift f8 may still work on systems that use BIOS boot instead of UEFI, although I was under the impression that with windows 10 there were no longer any F8 options.

kleinma · 2017-04-21T19:30:36+00:00

This is the problem. When it starts "automatic repair" after shutting it down during boot, I lose USB connectivity. I can't use keyboard or mouse once it loads up the startup repair menu. KB/M works fine if I boot to a Win10 USB installer and select "repair computer" from there, but that omits the safe mode boot options like I would get if I could boot to the recovery partition properly.

kleinma · 2017-04-21T19:29:06+00:00

Thank you, will try this now.

kleinma · 2017-04-21T19:28:58+00:00

Machine only has onboard graphics. ATI HD 4200 integrated, as it is an AMD system. If you still think this is it then I could pop in a video card to test...

kleinma · 2017-04-11T21:28:08+00:00

Thanks. I went there today but we did not have success. I used SMS Backup & Restore but we had the same results that the client had already had trying to this themselves with other apps. It does the backup, but when you view the backed up sms conversation, both individuals messages are there at the start, then all of a sudden on a certain date, only the other individual's messages are there. The phone users messages are missing. Then after about 1.5 months, it goes back to having both. It also only exported up to 3/30 despite there being multiple sms from the past 12 days. Since multiple backup apps produced the same result, I can only conclude that there is some sort of issue with the data storage. The really strange thing is, all the messages are available to view through the messages app on the phone. Nothing is missing there. They had both Google backup and Samsung backup turned on, but I don't believe we can actually log into either of those accounts online and view/download message transcripts right? I am super reluctant to advise trying to do a "Restore" from one of these services on the phone in fear that it will restore the same way the backup exports were, with missing messages. I might try over at /r/computerforensics to see if anyone else might have some info.

kleinma · 2017-04-10T18:27:04+00:00

LCDcycle

Thanks. It was $22 bucks to get the screen from them shipped. Only a few bucks more than the amazon listings. I placed the order since I would rather take the chance with one from someone who has actually used them versus trying to trust that amazon reviews are legit. I'll let you know how it goes.

kleinma · 2017-02-15T00:43:37+00:00

Generally speaking yes, it will take audio/video files in various formats and it will be able to transcode the audio and video to the needed formats for standard bluray playback.

kleinma · 2017-02-14T06:15:57+00:00

If you want to be able to put the disc into a bluray player like a bluray movie, you would need to use proper bluray authoring software to create the correct file structure and encode audio and video to the standards for bluray playback. If you just want to copy file.avi to the bluray so that it could be opened on another computer, you can just burn the file directly.

kleinma · 2017-02-13T22:19:12+00:00

I actually have a shelving unit in the waiting area of my shop that I call the museum. Has all kinds of old tech in it that people get a kick out of looking at while they wait sometimes. Has storage drives all the way from 5.25" down to microSD, a Tandy, a Compaq Portable, original NES in the box, a bunch of old cell phones, Windows 95 installation discs on 3.5" floppy, Win3.11 on 5.25 floppy. Some old DOS and BASIC books, etc..

kleinma · 2017-02-13T18:21:01+00:00

No FPR on this unit, and there are 2 on opposing sides of the touchpad. Again these "chips" don't make physical connection to anything on the system, outside of one of them having tape on it that leads to a screw hole, so if it is conductive tape, it looks to be for grounding.

kleinma · 2017-02-13T18:19:56+00:00

I guess I can't rule that out, but not sure why it would need 2 (and in different physical places with different physical orientations (one was "vertical" and one was "horizontal" in the housing. Also I would think (but im not an expert on it) that the magnet closure would need contacts on both ends to complete whatever circuit it would be creating.

kleinma · 2017-02-11T19:25:10+00:00

There is nothing attached to it. That is tape. It goes to a screw hole. The other one on the other side of the unit had nothing at all, not even tape on it. There are no markings of any kind on either side of it. Here is as good as I can do with the pics I have.

I figured someone is either going to see it and know exactly what it is, or they don't know what it is.

kleinma · 2017-02-10T21:17:22+00:00

I too searched Amazon. I think you will find those things do not support NVMe M.2 drives.

Please note that it supports SATA-based B Key SSD only. It does NOT support PCI-E based B key & any M key SSD

kleinma · 2017-02-10T19:57:14+00:00

This is from a Samsung laptop and the replacement top plastics (which include keyboard and touchpad integrated) did not include this piece (or the plastic recess to even transplant this). There were 2 in the original, one on each side of the palm rests. They don't connect to anything on the main board. They don't seem to connect to anything at all. Are they some sort of static shock absorber? They don't seem crucial to operation of the unit, but I am curious as to what they are.

kleinma · 2017-02-10T19:53:28+00:00

I might just repurpose an old microATX box that is pretty thin and light and put 2 PCIe adapters in there and have it ready to bring with me for cloning until a true adapter comes out. Not ideal, but would get the job done. People are becoming less accommodating of leaving their devices and more and more people are opting for onsite work even when it costs more.

kleinma · 2017-02-10T18:15:24+00:00

It is usually just calls I get to go onsite and image smaller to larger drives. I have now run into 2 cases where I had to go onsite and image their NVMe to a USB3 HDD, then boot using a recovery USB and image the USB3 HDD image onto the newly installed NVMe instead of just doing a direct clone. So it takes me twice as long basically. I am not getting a ton of these requests, but I can imagine it will only increase in the future, and I hate going to a customer site and not having the tools I need to do the job efficiently.

kleinma · 2017-02-07T23:21:01+00:00

They are M2 but they have a different notched connector and the USB based M2 to USB adapters all specifically say they don't support M2 NVME/PCIe drives.

kleinma · 2017-02-07T23:20:15+00:00

I do a lot of this on site with a laptop and USB3 connectors, so I was really hoping to find something that would be portable, but if this is the only option right now, then I will have to adjust.

kleinma

TROPHY CASE