Microsoft has acknowledged a new issue impacting Windows 10 customers that might cause booting to fail on devices where the chkdsk tool has been used to repair logical file system errors.
chkdsk is a command-line utility that can be used to check a Windows device's volumes for file system and file system metadata logical and physical errors.
While Microsoft doesn't say which Windows 10 versions are affected by this new known issue, the bug was acknowledged on the dedicated pages for the KB4592438 and KB4586853 updates issued for Windows 10 versions 2004 and 20H2 in December and November, respectively.
This ongoing issue affecting Windows 10 users was first spotted by Planet3DNow users and first reported by Günter Born.
Fix rolling out to all affected devices
"A small number of devices that have installed this update have reported that when running chkdsk /f, their file system might get damaged and the device might not boot," Microsoft explains.
The issue has now been resolved according to Microsoft for all non-managed devices, although it might take up to 24 hours for the fix to self-propagate to all affected devices.
To speed up the process and prioritize the deployment of the fix on your device you can also restart any potentially impacted devices.
"For enterprise-managed devices that have installed this update and encountered this issue, it can be resolved by installing and configuring a special Group Policy," Microsoft says. "To find out more about using Group Policies, see Group Policy Overview."
Mitigation on devices unable to boot after running chkdsk
Microsoft has also provided mitigation measures for customers who already tried to run chkdsk and inadvertently damaged their computers' file system.
To repair their devices' boot capability, users are advised to go through the following procedure:
- The device should automatically start up into the Recovery Console after failing to start up a few times.
- Select Advanced options.
- Select Command Prompt from the list of actions.
- Once Command Prompt opens, type: chkdsk /f
- Allow chkdsk to complete the scan, this can take a little while. Once it has completed, type: exit
- The device should now start up as expected. If it restarts into Recovery Console, select Exit and continue to Windows 10.
After going through all the above steps, your device might automatically run chkdsk again on restart to fix any logical or physical errors.
However, once it completes the check, the computer should once again start up as expected.
Comments
ctigga - 1 year ago
I had a colleague who ran into this on her PowerSpec box. Literally, one minute the system was working, she rebooted and the system failed to boot. I had replaced her hard disk just a few weeks prior so I knew the chances of that being the problem were slim. Anyways, this bug was the catalyst that FINALLY got her to cut her losses with Windows and move to Ubuntu Linux.
avnercoopman - 1 year ago
In order to avoid this (as much as possible) and especially with BitLocker encrypted drives, you should use chkdsk /r/f/x - the X will unmount the drive and prevent the problem.
doriel - 1 year ago
Wonder how many people will be left with unfunctional systems, when they are not able to boot the Windows and they do not know how to fix it. If your system would not boot, how can it be repaired automatically via updates?
(*sarcasm alert*) Good one, Microsoft!
Rutger95 - 1 year ago
My laptop encountered this issue last sunday (20th). I couldn't find anything about it besides thinking it was in a boot repair loop. To fix it I tried repairing the MBR but that didn't work. Then I tried removing the last updates in the blue bootrepair menu, that didn't work. Now my pc is unusable, it also refuses to boot in safe mode or repair Windows without losing my files.
When I try the fix mentioned above it says:
"The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock the current drive.
Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected."
Is there any other way to fix it or is it lost and do I need to do a fresh install of Windows?
serghei - 1 year ago
That's the only official workaround. I will update the story when Microsoft updates/shares more info on their end.
Rutger95 - 1 year ago
I've unplugged my Samsung SSD and put it in a docking station on an other PC. It couldn't read it and gave an error that said the data was corrupted. Do you think the SSD is actually broken or is it just software that needs to be fixed? I tried it a few times and it also sometimes gave me an error saying the directory name could not be found, but that might be because it has the same name as the C drive in this computer. The HDD I had in the broken computer is completely fine luckily.