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Windows 10 can't reboot in Boot Camp

I

Irishman

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Nov 2, 2006
3,452
860
I've had a Boot Camp partition on my late 2012 21.5" iMac for over a year now. The relationship between OS switching has been flaky at best. I had updated my Mac to 10.14.3 several days ago, and had the thought to update Windows as well, mostly to see how Fortnite performed after the update, and because it had been awhile, and gaming was the only reason I installed Windows in the first place.

Yesterday, I restarted into Windows, and let Fornite update, and then let Windows and iTunes/iCloud update, too. Once finished, Windows restarted, and then it got caught in a reboot loop, unable to finish and get back to my login screen. This morning, I woke up to a blue screen telling me that after numerous attempts, Windows could not successfully restart. I then restarted into safe mode, and it got about 16% finished, and failed to boot.

At that point, I held down the power button on my iMac and switched back and my Mac OS startup disk, and posted this problem to you guys.

Has anyone had this problem? I don't know how to resolve it.
 
Do you have a backup of your Windows data? If so, you might have to wipe the Windows partition using the Boot Camp Assistant, and then go through the trouble of reinstalling Windows 10. Unless the games you have need to be run in Windows itself, you might want to consider a Windows 10 VM instead. Parallels or VMWare might be able to run them fairly well.
 
Download the trial of Parallels Desktop and set it to read your BootCamp, then load that up via MacOS.

9 times out of 10, it manages to boot it and then just a clean load means it works when you next boot it natively. There’s a few reasons it does the trick so it’s a pretty reliable step/workaround.

Please try the above before you wipe the partition. It won’t cost you anything for the Parallels trial and hopefully it’ll do the trick.
 
I installed Mojave some time back and Windows 10 would not work on Bootcamp. Had to go back to High Sierra, and now it works. Not really sure why. I have a 2012 MacBook Air, if that makes a difference. Good luck.
 
chscag said:
Do you have a backup of your Windows data? If so, you might have to wipe the Windows partition using the Boot Camp Assistant, and then go through the trouble of reinstalling Windows 10. Unless the games you have need to be run in Windows itself, you might want to consider a Windows 10 VM instead. Parallels or VMWare might be able to run them fairly well.
Click to expand...


I don't know, honestly. I do have a working Time Machine backup volume. Can that help in this situation?
 
A Time Machine backup can certainly help to restore your macOS data, however, it's not going to help with the Windows problem. As has been suggested by @keysofanxiety might work, why not give that a try?
 
keysofanxiety said:
Download the trial of Parallels Desktop and set it to read your BootCamp, then load that up via MacOS.

9 times out of 10, it manages to boot it and then just a clean load means it works when you next boot it natively. There’s a few reasons it does the trick so it’s a pretty reliable step/workaround.

Please try the above before you wipe the partition. It won’t cost you anything for the Parallels trial and hopefully it’ll do the trick.
Click to expand...


I'll let you know how it goes. (Never used Parallels before, so if you have any tips, that'd be cool).
 
keysofanxiety said:
Cheers laed. Don'tche you worry! Before you know it, you'll be popping down the knock to celebrate with a few pints.

Seriously though, if this doesn't work I'm out of ideas.
Click to expand...


Well, if it doesn't work, I only have Steam and the Epic Game Launcher installed, so I guess it won't be a terrible tragedy if I have to delete that partition and redo from scratch.
 
keysofanxiety,

I'm downloading the trial now. While it's churning in the background, I do have a quick question - you wrote above that "set it to read your BootCamp, then load that up via MacOS". Is that part of the first run setup of Parallels, or is it something that I change in settings?

Thanks in advance!
 
Irishman said:
keysofanxiety,

I'm downloading the trial now. While it's churning in the background, I do have a quick question - you wrote above that "set it to read your BootCamp, then load that up via MacOS". Is that part of the first run setup of Parallels, or is it something that I change in settings?

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...


Alright, just a quick update on where I am in solving this BootCamp issue:

I've been trying to start up Parallels using my BootCamp, and on every one of 8 attempts, it has failed to complete.

I'm making the 9th attempt right now in the background.
 
SaSaSushi said:
When you say "failed to complete" are you getting any particular error message?

For example, do you see either of these?
Click to expand...


Here's what I'm getting: "Your PC couldn't start properly.

After multiple tries, the operating system on your pc failed to start, so it needs to be repaired.

Error code: 0xc0000001

You'll need to use recovery tools. If you don't have installation media (like a disk or USB device), contact your pc administrator or pc/device manufacturer.

Press Enter to try again.
Press F8 for Startup Settings"


Has anyone tried this method? http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/blog/repair-bootcamp-partition/
 
Last edited:
you said you recently installed updates on windows 10? I think the problems are there (could be the system updates, or the other programs, games, apps, that got updated).....do you have a restore point or system image of Windows 10 you could reinstall, that is, assuming you can get to the system restore screens in the startup manager?

if not, try doing the "F8" key and select starting up with "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement"

I have gotten that same exact error code I think and this was my only way to get the system to boot Windows 10 AT ALL after the initial occurrence. After that I had to wipe the drive and reinstall Windows 10 (I didn't have a system image backup yet as I was still getting programs installed). Note that if selecting "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement" works, it will only work once. After you warm boot or cold boot you will come back to the same error screen and have to select it again. You will have to uninstall whatever made the issue, revert to a system image backup, or start over with a clean install. I NEVER will mix macOS and Windows on the same disk because of these potential pitfalls. Keeping your OS's on separate disks will let you avoid having to reinstall both should you need to wipe the disks for issues and troubleshooting
 
skizzo said:
you said you recently installed updates on windows 10? I think the problems are there (could be the system updates, or the other programs, games, apps, that got updated).....do you have a restore point or system image of Windows 10 you could reinstall, that is, assuming you can get to the system restore screens in the startup manager?

if not, try doing the "F8" key and select starting up with "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement"

I have gotten that same exact error code I think and this was my only way to get the system to boot Windows 10 AT ALL after the initial occurrence. After that I had to wipe the drive and reinstall Windows 10 (I didn't have a system image backup yet as I was still getting programs installed). Note that if selecting "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement" works, it will only work once. After you warm boot or cold boot you will come back to the same error screen and have to select it again. You will have to uninstall whatever made the issue, revert to a system image backup, or start over with a clean install. I NEVER will mix macOS and Windows on the same disk because of these potential pitfalls. Keeping your OS's on separate disks will let you avoid having to reinstall both should you need to wipe the disks for issues and troubleshooting
Click to expand...


I just tried your suggestion about 'doing the "F8" key and select starting up with "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement"', and it did not work.

Thanks though. :)

ETA: I also tried the booting into recovery mode and trying to use Disk Utility, which was unsuccessful in repairing my Bootcamp partition.
 
Last edited:
Irishman said:
I just tried your suggestion about 'doing the "F8" key and select starting up with "Disable Driver Signature Enforcement"', and it did not work.

Thanks though. :)

ETA: I also tried the booting into recovery mode and trying to use Disk Utility, which was unsuccessful in repairing my Bootcamp partition.
Click to expand...

You're at the point in time where you're battling windmills. Probably time to erase the Windows partition and start over. Just be sure you have a good backup of your macOS partition before proceeding. I highly recommend using either CCC or Superduper to clone your macOS in case something goes wrong and you have to start over with everything.
 
if you cannot get into WINDOWS recovery options to revert to a restore point or install a system image I think you are "SOL" :/

You will need to reinstall the windows 10 system from scratch. best way to do that is to wipe the whole disk, not just windows associated partitions while leaving the macOS partitions. do yourself a favor and get a backup disk that you can do a full disk clone to for each OS (and put different OS's on different disks!), as well as having restore points, system images, and backups. That way you have options to revert Windows either through the integrated software or through installing the backup clone HDD to either use as is or copy it back to the desired start up disk. lots of software out there that does this but if your a cheapskate like me MiniTool Partition Wizard has a free version that does all this stuff. And it does a lot more if you buy the full version. I use that in Windows. Time Machine has always been enough for me making bootable backups on macOS
 
Alright, guys, I just removed my Win10 partition, using Boot Camp Asst.

I'm gonna spend some time in MacOS for some time before trying again. :)

Thanks for all your help.
 
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