I'm having a major issue where my Windows 11 won't boot. Initially, I encountered a Startup Repair SrtTrail.txt error that indicated a problem with an early-boot driver, specifically MbamElam.sys. This progressed to a 0xc000000f bootloader error. When I tried to disable the early-launch anti-malware feature or access recovery options, I started getting a winload.efi error with the code 0xc0e90002. Now, I can access the Windows Recovery Environment, but all my repair attempts, including commands like bootrec /fixmbr and others, keep failing. Fixboot gives me an Access Denied message every time. I even mounted the EFI System Partition and assigned it a drive letter but the bcdboot command fails with a BFSVC error saying it can't open the BCD template store. It seems likely my EFI System Partition is corrupted, but my OS partition appears intact. Also, my drive is BitLocker-encrypted, and I have to enter my recovery key for access. I need help either repairing or recreating the EFI System Partition, rebuilding the BCD store, and fixing the bootloader so I can get Windows running again. If the EFI partition is too damaged, I would like to know if there's a way to do a non-destructive repair install that preserves my data. By the way, I'm using a Surface Laptop Studio 1.
1 Answer
Hey, it sounds like your SSD might be on the verge of failure. If that's the case, you should back up your data as soon as you can after unlocking BitLocker. A fresh install could be risky if the SSD is failing, as it might corrupt your data further. I recommend going to a repair shop to safely clone the drive before trying any repair install, just to be safe. Do you have any backups?
Honestly, it’s good that you don’t have too much critical data on there. Just make sure they're careful with diagnostics; even a little hiccup could lead to more issues!
I haven’t backed it up yet. This is my first major issue like this. I’m planning to take it to a repair shop tomorrow to hopefully back up my files and fix it.