Windows 10 - cannot rescue installation with Windows 10 USB - "CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED" and it restarts.

[coolguy80]

Windows just restarts. Automatic repair fails. No system restore, Reset PC or other options available when booting with Windows 10 bootable USB. Is it possible to restore this installation without reinstalling? I am OK with command line. This PC has 2 drives and Windows 10 is on a 1 TB drive. I am dual booting with Linux.

 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

if it won't even repair through booting into the usb installer then I'd say it's already not worth the hassle

At this point I'd just use the linux install to xfer anything you need off the windows drive and reinstall then put everything back

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 30/11/2022 at 07:29, coolguy80 said:

Windows just restarts. Automatic repair fails. No system restore, Reset PC or other options available when booting with Windows 10 bootable USB. Is it possible to restore this installation without reinstalling? I am OK with command line. This PC has 2 drives and Windows 10 is on a 1 TB drive. I am dual booting with Linux.

I have experience with this, a Patch Tuesday update hosed my system earlier this year and all safe modes including trying to restore to an earlier System Restore point (yes I have those) did not work.. In the end I had to jump through hoops, but basically, what I ended up doing is booting a clean Windows 10 USB key (created on a laptop with the Windows 10 media creation tool) and then being able to restore to an earlier point through that.

What you don't want to do is invoke your PCs Windows 10 recovery, you want to invoke the Windows 10 USB key's recovery and let it repair/restore Windows on the PC.

Sorry I can't be more helpful, because all I remember is only being able to recover my PC using the USB key.

[xMorpheousx416]

Just seen that screen not so long ago myself... but, I'm on Windows 11.

Seems that "Critical Process Died" was Windows' way of telling me it lost contact with the boot drive. And.. it did. Couldn't even find it in the BIOS. Turned the system off, unplugged it from the wall, gave it five mins, and here we are up and running again. No known reason.

Checking to see if the drive is still seen by the BIOS may be the first start to recovering the drive... however, keeping in mind that that error may cover a wide variety of issues.