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In order to resolve issues related to booting and the start menu, I am trying to run a repair installation of Windows 10.

The computer was delivered with a pre-installed Windows 7 without any installation disks (delivering those seems to have fallen out of fashion, unfortunately) and was unintentionally upgraded to Windows 10 when the user ran into Microsoft's X means accept trap.

As is suggested in this forum, a repair install of Windows 10 can be done despite not having any installation media by using the Windows 10 ISO. I have thus prepared a bootable USB storage with the ISO file generated by Microsoft's MediaCreationTool.exe.

Upon booting the destination computer from that device, however, I am confronted with the following message (in German, my translation below):

German message box text: "Scheinbar haben Sie ein Upgrade gestartet und einen Systemstart von den Installationsmedien durchgeführt. Wenn Sie das Upgrade fortsetzen möchten, nehmen Sie die Medien aus dem PC und klicken Sie auf 'Ja'. Um stattdessen eine Neuinstallation auszuführen, klicken Sie auf 'Nein'."

In English:

Apparently, you have launched an upgrade and conducted a system reboot from the installation media. If you wish to continue the upgrade, remove these media from the PC and click "Yes". In order to run a clean reinstall instead, click "No".

I am confused by this message and do not understand what it is trying to tell me:

  • The premise seems incorrect. I have not yet started anything, least of all an "upgrade".
  • As I have not started anything, and as I do not want to run any "upgrade" (I have not purchased any newer or higher version that the installed OS could be upgraded to), I do not want to continue the upgrade. Hence, "Yes" seems like the wrong choice.
  • I want to repair the existing installation. I do not want to entirely reset the system. Thus, "No" appears to be the wrong choice, as well.

How do I proceed from this point to reach any repair installation options?

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O. R. Mapper
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    In order to run Windows Automatic Repair you either need the installation disk which you can download for free from Microsoft, or cause Windows to not fully load 3 times, the method your attempting to use won't work. – Ramhound Oct 24 '16 at 15:04
  • @Ramhound: "the installation disk which you can download for free from Microsoft" - that *is* the method I am attempting to use. It brings me to the dialog box shown in the question. – O. R. Mapper Oct 24 '16 at 15:11
  • "an be done despite not having any installation media by using the Windows 10 ISO." - The Windows 10.ISO is the Windows 10 installation media. Hence the reason I made that comment. You are booting the installation media, on the PC with the HDD with the problem, in the system the HDD normally is installed in? Based on your description your attempting to boot the installation media on some other device which won't work. So you have no options to do an Advanced Startup? – Ramhound Oct 24 '16 at 15:14
  • @Ramhound: I have used the Windows 10 ISO to create a bootable USB key. I am booting the PC with the problematic Windows 10 installation from said USB key. This is more or less what is described on [Microsoft's website](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10) - they suggest to burn a DVD from the ISO file and boot from that. Whether I boot from a DVD or a USB key should not make a difference, as long as the machine supports booting from these devices (it does). What do you mean by "Advanced Startup"? – O. R. Mapper Oct 24 '16 at 15:35
  • I'm guessing the ISO is the anniversary build, your existing install isn't. Would be a whole lot simpler to just do as @Ramhound suggested in the first place, make Windows not boot successfully 3 times in a row, it will automatically go to Repair. – Tetsujin Oct 25 '16 at 12:06
  • @Tetsujin: "I'm guessing the ISO is the anniversary build" - no idea; I'm using whatever `MediaCreationTool.exe` outputs. "make Windows not boot successfully 3 times in a row" - I did that, and while it showed a message that I hadn't seen before (maybe I had missed it, though ...), something like *preparing to repair Windows*, I am now back at the *Repairing disk errors. This might take over an hour to complete.* message that [I have encountered before](http://superuser.com/questions/1138003), and which seemed to get stuck as it was shown for more than 12 hours without any change. – O. R. Mapper Oct 25 '16 at 12:22
  • If the disk is hosed, then you can try repairing the install as much as you like... it won't lead anywhere. – Tetsujin Oct 25 '16 at 12:41
  • @Tetsujin: I am still trying to find out whether anything is wrong with the disk. At least `sfc` doesn't find any errors in the system files, and whatever files I tried to access from within Windows could be opened fine. I'm trying to run something like Checkdisk with some *actual scan report* that tells me whether something is wrong and what is wrong, not just the nonsensical "Scanning, possibly for a long time." upon booting, where it's total guesswork whether the program is taking a long time because there is a problem, because it's buggy and got stuck, or just because the drive is large. – O. R. Mapper Oct 25 '16 at 12:47
  • Pull the drive out & test it on another machine. – Tetsujin Oct 26 '16 at 06:52

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