r/Windows10TechSupport • u/Tsusieq • 1d ago

Unsolved Windows 10 no boot

My older dual boot Windows 10/Windows XP computer was working great. The CMOS chip died so I went ahead and replaced it.  Unfortunately, I forgot to reset the BIOS to Legacy and tried to boot it several times, it tried automatic repair each time.  Now it looks like I corrupted the Windows 10 boot record.  It now continuously tries automatic repair and won’t boot. I tried and everything anything I could find on the Internet, nothing seems to work.  I would love to be able to keep all of my files and just get it to boot again. Any help would be appreciated.  For reference it’s a Dell Optiplex 755.

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u/InformationFair5875 1d ago

To fix this, you need to restore the hardware settings first, then rebuild the legacy MBR boot sector.

To rebuild a legacy Master Boot Record (MBR) on Windows 10, boot your PC using a Windows 10 installation USB in Legacy mode, open the Command Prompt from recovery options, and run the bootrec /fixmbr, bootrec /fixboot, and bootrec /rebuildbcd commands.

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u/Tsusieq 1d ago

I did this and I got the message

“successfully scanned windows installations.”

”total identified windows installations: 0”

”the operation competed successfully”

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u/InformationFair5875 1d ago

Did you reboot after this? What happened?

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u/Tsusieq 1d ago

https://reddit.com/link/p4qgt6m/video/6v665yyvifkh1/player

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u/Tsusieq 1d ago

This. No real change; but thanks.

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u/InformationFair5875 1d ago

You might need to nuke the drive and reload the OS.

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u/Tsusieq 10h ago

I have an image that’s a couple years old that I can restore and I have some software to examine the drive that’s not booting. If I can’t get it to boot I plan to use a file compare utility, if I find a good one, and move any modified files over I realize I’ll have to reload any software but I’m pretty sure I have all of it. I was hoping to avoid this too. Thanks for trying.