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I just installed an upgraded CPU into an existing stable Win10 box with no other changes (besides removing and replacing ram for clearance during install). It POSTs just fine, and everything displays in BIOS correctly. When starting Windows, I get a Recovery error screen with the message saying that \Windows\system32\winload.exe is missing or contains errors. Error code is 0xc000000f.

I have tried clearing CMOS, enabling and disabling secure boot, all cables are properly seated, chkdsk comes back clean, I ran a system restore, and I tried to use bootrec but keep getting file not found errors. I was able to get bootrec /scanos to show me it detected a Windows install and implied it was not in the BCD store - but when I did a bootrec /rebuildbcd and selected it to be added to the store I got another file not found error.

At this point I'm pretty stumped and am planning to just wipe and reinstall, but hoping someone here might have some insights before the nuclear option!

System specs:
Windows 10
1 1TB SATA SSD (WD Blue)
1 1TB NvME SSD (Samsung 970 Evo) 1 CD/DVD RW optical drive
MSI Gaming Plus MAX B450 motherboard, has latest firmware version
AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU (previous CPU Ryzen 5 3400G)
MSI Radeon 6650XT GPU
G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 8GBx4

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1 Answer 1

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  • Test booting from USB, e.g., WinRE/WinPE, or bootable Ubuntu media. If that works, then likely there is an OS or SSD issue.
  • If you you did not cleanly shut down before upgrading (e.g., had Fast Start enabled), this could be causing the startup issue. Easiest, and surprisingly, likely quickest, fix would be to download the Windows 10 ISO and reinstall, keeping all files. For safety, I'd make a disk image first, lest files be lost.
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