Subject: Re: Taskbar notification network symbol gone & Network & Internet crashes
On Mon, 7/20/2026 6:53 AM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
On 20/07/2026 in message <113kuat$147il$1@dont-email.me> Paul wrote:
On Mon, 7/20/2026 5:13 AM, Jeff Gaines wrote:
On 20/07/2026 in message <113kofj$12f3b$1@dont-email.me> Paul wrote:
Having a safety backup of C: before the run, is
just standard practice with software...
Or whatever drive your data is on of course, "D" in my case since Win98SE. >>>
If doing side-by-side installs, you back up the whole device, all partitions.
This isn't a side by side install, it's a repair/reinstall of the OS.
Correct. And for that, making a backup of C: and the ESP partition,
that would be a good start. If you like a working WinRE, you can
back up your Recovery partition too. You don't need to back up D: ,
as D: getting hit by a bus, is less likely to happen during a Repair Install. The approach the install uses, does not endanger materials outside
the area of interest. It's Clean Installs or Side-by-Side installs,
where there is a "tiny" risk, as indicated by my having two or three
disks wiped in twenty years of doing this stuff. That's what a tiny risk is.
If D: were important to you, you already are making infrequent backups
of it, like every three months, snapshot your D: so you don't
lose everything on it.
A Repair Install does not necessarily re-pave the BCD file. It
modifies something in there enough, for the four phases of install
and booting the right thing on the first reboot.
And if you have to, you can *format* the ESP (FAT32 EFI System Partition)
and rebuild it yourself. It's not actually that hard to do. Now that I've
done one this year. Some commands only affect the BCD file itself, but
there is one command which will re-fill K:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot with materials. You have to use a Reagentc Recovery Recipe to refill K:\EFI\Microsoft\Recovery with materials (called PBR or Push Button Reset, for WinRE).
When you boot a Macrium Rescue CD, Macrium already has a drive letter
assigned to the ESP partition. That's not particularly important, and
that saves you a minute doing that mapping manually. And that doesn't
use the letter K: . I use the letter K: in a lot of my recipes, as
an indication of a "temporarily assigned drive letter for a recipe".
Other people or things don't care about K: particularly. This is
what I mean by K: , spelled out.
diskpart.exe
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 1 # The ESP
assign letter=K # Now, the ESP is K:
exit
After we're done that, this is restoring your boot materials K:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot ,
so you can at least boot again.
format K: /fs:fat32 /Q # A quick format of the K: partition. Boot now broken.
bcdboot c:\Windows /s K: /f uefi # Boot now fixed. Any additional fix, can be via EasyBCD 2.4
# or by yet another bcdboot command (with different params).
I haven't done the experiment, but the SuperGrub disc, may be able to
chain load a Windows, if you've damaged the ESP. I should probably
put this test case on my TODO list.
https://www.supergrubdisk.org/category/download/supergrub2diskdownload/super-grub2-disk-stable/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/supergrub2/files/2.06s4/super_grub2_disk_2.06s4/supergrub2-classic-2.06s4-multiarch-CD.iso/download
Name: supergrub2-classic-2.06s4-multiarch-CD.iso
Size: 24,905,728 bytes (23 MiB)
SHA256: D26EE9CDA990051FBE4C2B367659DF5156A130A7ADA29F0B4FB0E65928D8EBAB
Not every possible mode works on that, but it's worth a shot when
you think your world has ended :-) I find it much much easier to repair
an OS, if I can boot into it. It's much easier than finding offline options
for a fix.
[Picture] USB-Tethered-SSD-Boot.jpg (actually, depicts operation of SuperGrub2)
https://imgur.com/a/fCKwAl9
https://postimg.cc/DmvKNttQ
Paul
--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)