Windows 10 - Driver update broke windows

Windows 10 - Driver update broke windows

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Calza

Original Poster:

2,032 posts

121 months

Monday 29th August 2022
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My GPU driver was hugely out of date, and seemed to get itself in a muddle so I updated it. Now I am in a state that windows will not boot (even in safe mode). I get stuck in a loop of bios > recovery screen.

For the life of me I can't remember my account password so can't perform any kind of system restore, and although I've updated it online, I'm guessing it isn't pushing through to the machine so it isn't accepted (If I could solve pushing the password through, I'd probably be good..).

Interestingly I've tried plugging in another HDD with windows 10 on to see if it can boot from that and it does exactly he same thing. Bios get's stuck in a "preparing automatic repair" mode then dumps me in the recovery mode area. This seems really weird?!

Everything looks okay in the bios, and I've removed everything connected to the machine apart from the basics.

I have access to my work laptop but cannot create any installation media from that.

I really don't want to consider losing all my files at this stage (I know, I know) but am wondering what my options actually are at this stage? Without command prompt or restores I feel pretty flat out of options.

essayer

9,487 posts

200 months

Monday 29th August 2022
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Is it a cpu with integrated graphics ? If so you could try enabling it in the bios and removing the graphics card completely, at least get back into windows

Calza

Original Poster:

2,032 posts

121 months

Monday 29th August 2022
quotequote all
Unfortunately not it's a 5800x.

Somehow when using HDD #2 (which was being forced to recovery mode) I managed to run a system restore. This worked and has allowed me into windows on that drive - confirming I think that the rest of the hardware is okay. I think the restore actually ended up triggering something else, somewhere.

I can now see the other hard drive, but naturally can't access the files on it..


Calza

Original Poster:

2,032 posts

121 months

Monday 29th August 2022
quotequote all
Using command prompt from a recovery drive I manually deleted every AMD driver I could find - it worked!

Booted up in a safe-mode and got things running as normal.

essayer

9,487 posts

200 months

Monday 29th August 2022
quotequote all
Now back it up so you can just reinstall in future biggrin

Calza

Original Poster:

2,032 posts

121 months

Tuesday 30th August 2022
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Data backed up and windows password stored on some paper in a drawer 😂