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On a Dell XPS-15-9500, I had a dual boot installation of Windows 10 and Ubuntu 20.04 that worked well for a long time. Then something strange happened (I think after a Windows update) and neither Windows 10 nor Ubuntu still booted. I managed to restore access to Ubuntu by repairing GRUB but windows still can't boot. When I boot to windows I get a black screen and hear a single beep. I can go to support assist to try to recover Windows 10. However, this just gets stuck on either a white or a black screen (with a cursor that can be moved) the first time it also gave a warning about a critical error.

The windows partition is still accessible from Ubuntu (encryption is turned off). There is clearly no hardware issue since Ubuntu still functions perfectly well. I have no recovery medium to boot from.

I downloaded and put the installation medium for windows 10 on an USB stick in the hope that I could use it to repair windows.

I did not try to install it again as I figured that would likely wipe the windows partition and I would prefer it if I could keep my files (really important things are already backed up it is more a matter of convenience). There were additional options to try and repair windows of which I tried startup repair. This just resulted in a reboot (which did not reboot back into my installation USB but instead into Ubuntu which is on top of the bootsequence). Trying it again it seems it did run. It said it could not repair my pc. It produced a log in which the most notable thing is:

"Root cause found: --------------------------- Boot status indicates that the OS booted successfully."

Is there a way to repair/restore Windows 10 without wiping any of my data (on either Ubuntu or Windows)?

After selecting "uninstall last quality update" from troubleshoot using the USB installation medium windows 10 successfully booted. Of course the first thing it did after starting up was perform new updates so fingers crossed it will not immediately make the system unbootable again.

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  • What happens when you try to boot Windows directly? If it doesn't work either then it won't fro Grub either, obviously. But keep that setting while you run the Windows installer and try repairing and if it fails then a reinstallation is in order, that's all.
    – ChanganAuto
    Commented Aug 26, 2022 at 17:27
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    If your system is currently bootable what exactly is your question?
    – Ramhound
    Commented Aug 26, 2022 at 19:00
  • Is your concern recovering files, or repairing Windows, and can you please edit this question to make your specific request more clear?
    – music2myear
    Commented Aug 27, 2022 at 2:17
  • My question is now answered if the system remains bootable. I will answer it with what I did and accept it. I am just waiting to verify it remains bootable.
    – Kvothe
    Commented Aug 27, 2022 at 10:34

1 Answer 1

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I created an installation USB using another device running Windows 10 (I found it difficult to do on Ubuntu because the ISO contains files greater than fat32 allows. See https://askubuntu.com/questions/289559/how-can-i-create-a-windows-bootable-usb-stick-using-ubuntu.)

I then booted from this USB. I selected troubleshoot and advanced options. Then I chose to uninstall the last quality update. After this Windows booted successfully.

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