3

I am currently stuck in a never-ending boot sequence in Windows 10 after failing to properly shutdown due to a misbehaving USB thumb drive. How can I escape? I will explain step-by-step what happened:

Before hardware-disconnecting a USB thumb drive, I normally try to be on the safe side by both

  1. software-ejecting the drive via the taskbar and then
  2. clicking on remove device in Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Devices and Printers.

This usually works just fine. This time, however, I was in a rush and forgot step 1, so when I executed step 2, my Windows 10 froze up (probably a quirk in my system, because this probably isn't expected behaviour).

Since the OS was hardly reacting anymore, the only solution I saw was to force-quit Windows via shutdown.exe /s /f /t 0. However, Windows 10 didn't properly shut down, but kept stuck with a blue screen saying "Please wait for the System Event Notification Service" below an endlessly rotating wheel:

blue screen

I waited for 30 minutes, but since no keyboard inputs had any effect and CTRL+ALT+DEL didn't bring up the task manager screen, I didn't see any other remaining choice aside from pressing the ON/OFF button on my computer. When I subsequently pressed ON/OFF again to restart the computer, to my great surprise the same blue screen with "Please wait for System Event Notification Service" reappeared instead of the normal boot sequence.

Retrospectively I understand why that happened: My ON/OFF power button was not configured to shut down the computer but to enter hibernation. In addition to that, this setting may be irrelevant, because apparently by default Windows 10 hibernates instead of truly shutting down anyway:

By default, Windows 10 enables a feature called Fast Startup (Hybrid Shutdown) that can shut down and boot up your PC much faster than Windows 7 or previous versions of Windows. When you shutdown Windows 10, you’re actually performing a partial hibernation.

If you prefer to have your PC completely shut down, you can either turn off Fast Startup feature or use the following methods to fully shutdown Windows 10.

power options

When I turn the PC off and on again via ON/OFF I always boot into said blue screen, so I am currently stuck in an endless shutdown/boot sequence.

I even disconnected the power cord from the PC to make sure it is really OFF (or hibernating as it turned out!) and not just sleeping.

Before Windows 10 I previously worked on Windows XP which allowed to interrupt the normal boot sequence by pressing F8 to enter the advanced boot menu and/or to discard hibernation state and boot normally ("delete restoration data and proceed to system boot menu"):

screenshot

This is exactly what I'd need now, because Windows 10 keeps trying to resume my hibernation state which is currently stuck in shutdown. So I need to tell Windows 10:

"Please don't try to resume the hibernation state, because it will never work, but restart fresh instead."

So the question is: How can I discard the hibernation state and boot normally in Windows 10 ?

Of course I would potentially lose any unsaved work this way (not applicable in my case though because I didn't have any unsaved work prior to the freeze-up), but this is still better than any more ungraceful methods which risk data corruption on the system drive.

I tried pressing all F-keys upon start-up but none of the function keys brought up an advanced boot menu (like F8 in Windows XP).

So how can I access the advanced boot menu in Windows 10 ?

All methods I found on the Internet required access to the OS (e.g. telling Windows to enter advanced boot menu on subsequent restart), but this doesn't work for me since the boot sequence fails and I cannot enter Windows.

Update: Since I failed to find a solution, I pressed the ON/OFF key again as soon as the Windows logo appeared, as the suggested solution on some Internet sites. The unexpected effect was an ungraceful immediate shutdown (with the risk of data corruption on the system drive) – which I had tried very hard to avoid.

Due to this accident, I am now out of the endless emerging-from-hibernation-into-failed-shutdown loop.

But I would like to be prepared for the next time I end up in such an endless loop.

So how can I enter the advanced boot menu during the Windows 10 start-up sequence in order to discard the hibernation state ?

All resources I found on the Internet suggest force-crashing(!) the Windows startup 3(!) times by interrupting the power supply. This is totally crazy!!! I can't fathom that the only way to access the advanced boot menu during Windows 10 start-up is something highly prone to data corruption. There must be another way, right?

Improve this question
11
  • 2
    Does this answer your question? Enter safe mode on Windows 11 during PC boot, without restarting from booted Windows
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Jan 11 at 2:24
  • 2
    That information is correct -- interrupt boot three times. By doing this very early in the process, it''s unlikely damage would be done to file system. Another option would be boot from external media and delete hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Jan 11 at 2:25
  • @DrMoishePippik : As mentioned in the question, I abhor crashing 3 times (for the reasons mentioned), therefore NO, the link does not answer my question. Your subsequent comment (deleting hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys) is more helpful to me (thank you), although I have never succeeded in creating an external boot media. There seem to be so many different instructions on how to do that, so I don't know what the best way is.
    – summerrain
    Commented Jan 11 at 3:20
  • 1
    The functionality that you provided in your screenshot no longer exists. You can reach the Advanced Startup menu through Windows, or you can disable the feature that makes Window boot nearly instantaneously, and access using it key designated to access your firmware settings.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 11 at 22:36
  • 1
    You can enable the F8 boot menu by changing the boot menu policy from standard to legacy. By opening cmd as admin then paste bcdedit /set “{current}” bootmenupolicy legacy. Not sure about this working for resuming from hibernate.
    – Aenfa
    Commented Jan 20 at 23:00

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4
+25

Addressing first the issue, rather than the direct question

So how can I enter the advanced boot menu during the Windows 10 start-up sequence in order to discard the hibernation state ?

This is a step which is not actually needed. If Windows fails to recover a hibernation state, it will automatically resume with a normal startup.

The issue that happened to you rather is connected to the fact that you've configured your power button to send Windows into hibernation, instead of shutting it down.

So, every time you tried to turn it on again, it resumed a somehow corrupt system state from hibernation: the hibernation was resumed correctly, but you just continued to hibernate some sort of endless system loop.

The correct thing to do when the system is not recoverable through Ctrl+Alt+Del is to force-shutdown by pressing the power button for 10-15 seconds. Once this is done, Windows will detect it wasn't shut down correctly, and will resume from scratch (and there will be no hibernation state which needs deletion).

Side-Notes:

I agree that force-crashing Windows 3 times is a bad idea, especially when it is totally unnecessary.

Usually, when Windows is in an endless loop, at some point there will be no more hard-disk activity going on: that's the right moment to long-press the power button.

Sending Windows 10 into hibernation makes only sense if you want to retake your work session exactly from where you left it. Otherwise, for system stability it is much better to use the built-in hybrid startup you mentioned in your question.

Answering the direct question

  • create a Windows Installer on USB
  • Change boot sequence in BIOS so to boot from the USB
  • Once the installer has started, select "Repair your computer"
  • Enjoy recovery mode
Improve this answer
6
  • Perfect answer. I am very sorry that apparently only half of the bounty was awarded to your aswer. I thought that the bounty will be doubled whenever the answer is accepted (regardless if that occurs before or after the first 7 days). My apologies. I think the rules should be changed so that accepting an answer after 7 days still doubles the bounty. I think there is nothing I can do now, except learning from that for the nex time.
    – summerrain
    Commented Feb 15 at 19:51
  • 1
    @summerrain No Worry. Just FYI: "If you do not award your bounty within 7 days (plus the grace period), the highest voted answer created after the bounty started with a minimum score of 2 will be awarded half the bounty amount (or the full amount, if the answer is also accepted). If two or more eligible answers have the same score (their scores are tied), the oldest answer is chosen. If there's no answer meeting those criteria, no bounty is awarded to anyone." Read full here: superuser.com/help/bounty
    – 1NN
    Commented Feb 15 at 20:47
  • thanks and sorry again for my blunder. I have written a feature request based on this problem here: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/396800 in case you want to chime in.
    – summerrain
    Commented Feb 15 at 21:35
  • 1
    @summerrain Really, don't worry. I've even missed full bounties, simply because the "Right answer" was awarded too late. But I think that, while reputation is a nice way of awarding people, it's simply not important enough. The reason I answer questions is because I find it relaxing as it takes my thoughts away from my everyday business.
    – 1NN
    Commented Feb 15 at 21:48
  • 1
    @summerrain Your appreciation is more worth than any bounty or rep. Once we stop judging ourselves, the World gets colored
    – 1NN
    Commented Feb 15 at 21:51

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .