Help please! Corrupted Windows 10? Orange Screen of death!

[youngsyr]

Hi all,

I have been running Windows 10 on this particular PC for over a year and it's my main PC, with all my apps etc installed.

On Monday I attempted to install the World of Tanks game and the screen eventually locked up. I restarted and was met with an orange screen with white stripes and a barely visible flashing underline icon on the top right of the screen.

After several power cycles and attempting to repair Windows using a downloaded version of Windows onto a USB, I still couldn't make any progress.

I see some advise online indicating this is a problem with Bitlocker, but I do not run Bitlocker.

So, I dropped in an NVME SSD from another machine with windows 10 on it and the PC worked perfectly. I can access the original windows drive and open MS documents (Word, Excel) from it. However, I no longer have all my apps (MS Office, etc) working on the machine because it's booting from the replacement drive.

Is there anyway I can simply repair the Windows files on the original drive to get it back to where it was?

Thanks in advance for any help offered!

[eeLee]

which version of Win10 do you have installed on the machine?

You could have device encryption turned on: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/turn-o...

On the old drive, can you get it to boot into safe mode? F8 might help: https://www.howtogeek.com/107511/how-to-boot-into-...

OSOD: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-10-orange-s...

[youngsyr]

eeLee said:

which version of Win10 do you have installed on the machine?

You could have device encryption turned on: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/turn-o...

On the old drive, can you get it to boot into safe mode? F8 might help: https://www.howtogeek.com/107511/how-to-boot-into-...

OSOD: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-10-orange-s...

Thanks for your reply!

It's Windows 10 Pro 64 bit, if I remember correctly.

I haven't turned on device encrypton, as far as I'm aware - wouldn't even know how to without your link!

Haven't tried booting it in safe mode - didn't realise that was an option, but will give it a go. Thanks!

[mmm-five]

Are you logged in with a local account, or a Microsoft account?

According to this page, it's on by default in W10 Pro if you're logged into a Microsoft account.

Microsoft said:

On supported devices running Windows 10 or newer BitLocker will automatically be turned on the first time you sign into a personal Microsoft account (such as @outlook.com or @hotmail.com) or your work or school account.

But if you can see the contents of the drive from another boot device, then I can't see how they're encrypted...as it would defeat the purpose of encrypting them.

If it was me, I'd copy the documents I need over to a backup device, wipe/format the offending drive and install W10 from scratch (from a new install USB created from the Microsoft media creation tool or the Win10 ISO image). Install all your apps again and then copy over your documents.

Edited by mmm-five on Thursday 1st June 10:31

[youngsyr]

mmm-five said:

Are you logged in with a local account, or a Microsoft account?

According to this page, it's on by default in W10 Pro if you're logged into a Microsoft account.

Microsoft said:

On supported devices running Windows 10 or newer BitLocker will automatically be turned on the first time you sign into a personal Microsoft account (such as @outlook.com or @hotmail.com) or your work or school account.

But if you can see the contents of the drive from another boot device, then I can't see how they're encrypted...as it would defeat the purpose of encrypting them.

If it was me, I'd copy the documents I need over to a backup device, wipe/format the offending drive and install W10 from scratch (from a new install USB created from the Microsoft media creation tool or the Win10 ISO image). Install all your apps again and then copy over your documents.

Edited by mmm-five on Thursday 1st June 10:31

Thanks, I can see that starting from scratch is the safest option, but I have shedliads if stuff on this PC and use it for work. It will take ages to copy everything across to a new install.

I've managed to get it to boot into safe mode and am now trying to do a system recovery from a file from last week. Hopefully this works.

PS: usually log in on a local account, but do get prompted to log in from a Microsoft accountcat least once per week which I ignore.

[mmm-five]

youngsyr said:

Thanks, I can see that starting from scratch is the safest option, but I have shedliads if stuff on this PC and use it for work. It will take ages to copy everything across to a new install.

I've managed to get it to boot into safe mode and am now trying to do a system recovery from a file from last week. Hopefully this works.

I'd still recommend backing up and critical documents BEFORE you try any recovery/restore options...as the more you mess with it, the bigger the chance of losing everything.

If you've got a 2nd SSD (SATA or NVMe) then it shouldn't take long...but if it's a work PC then there should be a backup process in place already.

[mmm-five]

youngsyr said:

PS: usually log in on a local account, but do get prompted to log in from a Microsoft accountcat least once per week which I ignore.

That probably means it's not Bitlocker encrypted then - along with the fact that you can access the files

Edited by mmm-five on Thursday 1st June 10:53

[youngsyr]

Thanks all - I think I've figured out what was going on...

My MSI AIO Liquid Cooler has stopped working, which caused the CPU temp to spike when I tried to install the World of Tanks game, but was the temp was just manageable (at around 96*C!!) whilst just using the computer normally.

So when I tried to install the game, the PC crashed mid-install, nobbling the windows OS.

By booting into safe mode, recovering windows from a previous safe mode, I was able to get the PC working again (I'm actually typing this from it now) and temporarily replace the AIO cooler with the standard intel fan cooler and temps are now running at 39*C.

So, I now need to check out the warranty on the AIO cooler and find a replacement (the PC runs an i10900).

[mmm-five]

I suppose that's good news in one sense...and gives you the opportunity to upgrade the cooler to something more modern/better.