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TLDR; BSOD on boot because of the enabled Driver Verifier. Can't login to Safe Mode to turn it off because I only remember the PIN, not the Password. Safe Mode with Network seems to be broken and doesn't connect to network (neither wifi nor ethernet).

The Problem:

I've been trying to solve the problem with Windows failing to install updates and being stuck on the 1909 version. I read somewhere that the culprit could be in faulty drivers. Carelessly, I followed a guide to enable Driver Verifier, and didn't create any backups nor recovery disks. After restarting, I am getting the BSOD because of the Driver Verifier (DRIVER_VERIFIER_DETECTED_VIOLATION).

What I've Tried So Far:

  1. This could be solved by booting into the Safe Mode and disabling it, but I can't do that because I don't know my password. I've been using only PIN for years now, but the Safe Mode asks for a password.

It seems like if one boots into the Safe Mode with Network - this should allow for logging in with the PIN, but that's where I meet another problem - a bug, possibly. In the Safe Mode with Network in the bottom right corner there is only an Airplane Mode icon, and the network is not connected. The Airplane Mode icon is not reacting to clicks and it's not clear whether it's on or off. Doesn't matter if I connect Ethernet - nothing changes. No network is available. I googled and it seems this problem is happening to many people. But the fix requires one to login into the Normal mode, which for me is a dead cycle.

Now, how else can I proceed forward and disable the Driver Verifier from outside the Windows?

  1. I have a dual-boot Linux Mint on this machine, so I tried a tool for editing the Windows Registry called chntpw, with which I could potentially disable the Driver Verifier according to this post. But it fails, too:
chntpw version 1.00 140201, (c) Petter N Hagen
Hive </media/poushkar/4AFE3C52FE3C3911/Windows/System32/config/SOFTWARE> name (from header): <emRoot\System32\Config\SOFTWARE>
ROOT KEY at offset: 0x001020 * Subkey indexing type is: 686c <lh>
File size 108527616 [6780000] bytes, containing 23069 pages (+ 1 headerpage)
Used for data: 1722478/107521320 blocks/bytes, unused: 414/112440 blocks/bytes.

WARNING: Login counts data not found in SAM
sam_list_users: Cannot find usernames in registry! (is this a SAM-hive?)
  1. Currently, as I am writing this, I am creating a USB stick with the Windows installation, and am going to attempt the Recovery, with the hope that a recovery "checkpoint" was created when I attempted Windows Update before messing everything up. But my hopes are not very high, to be honest. UPDATE: As expected, no recovery or restore points. Couldn't restore.

Any ideas on how one could proceed in such situation?

Thank you

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  • "I only remember the PIN, not the Password" - Why can't you enable the built-in Administrator account and use that?
    – Ramhound
    Commented Oct 28, 2022 at 19:55

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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You don't know the password. PIN does not work for you.

Restore from USB stick did not work and Windows won't run.

The only recourse now is to reinstall Windows fresh. You need to check your disk first. If you can run hardware tests from a bootable USB, do that. Run Memtest86.exe to test memory.

Try booting with a bootable USB to see if you can recover data and also to see if your main disk is working, and other hardware tests are successful.

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  • 2
    As @John states, make a full Windows 10 installation USB stick with the Media Creation Tool from microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10. Perform a reinstallation, keeping files (but make a disk image first, in case something goes wrong). This will, in effect, also perform numerous "updates" in one swell foop.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Oct 28, 2022 at 19:37

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