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Booting my Windows 10 PC results in a message saying that the winload.exe file, located in Windows\System32, is either corrupt or missing.

Can I copy the winload.exe file from someone else having the same Windows version as me and put that on my HDD (in the appropriate location, of course) in order to boot from it, or are there crucial differences in that file depending on the system and hardware drivers?

Thank you!

EDIT: Hardware Specs:

  • Architecture: 64bit
  • OS: Windows 10 Pro
  • RAM: 8GB
  • CPU: Intel i2
  • HDD: 4TB Western Digital
  • MB: HP Compaq Elite
GPWR
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  • You'd try to repair your system by a **Windows 10 recovery USB**. Read this [article](https://www.minitool.com/backup-tips/windows-10-recovery-usb-for-another-pc.html) to know how to do. – Jorge Luiz Nov 16 '21 at 01:18
  • *I was restarting my computer several times in a row to fix a problem and accidentally powered my computer off while it was starting. This broke the winload.exe file.* this is not true. – user1292580 Nov 16 '21 at 08:55
  • @user1292580 As far as I know, it is true. I was restarting my computer and, on the second or third time, I think I stopped it while it was booting. On the next startup, I had a message saying the file was corrupt or missing. I am not an expert. What else do you suggest happened? – GPWR Nov 16 '21 at 14:17
  • @JorgeLuiz Thank you for your comment. With this tool, can I just save specific files/folders of my choice to an external USB? – GPWR Nov 16 '21 at 14:22
  • @G-Power No, it's not. You'd go to another computer with Windows 10 installed working very well and to make this **recovery USB** on it, then try to use it on your computer for reparing **corrupted Windows**. – Jorge Luiz Nov 16 '21 at 16:46
  • @JorgeLuiz OK. Thank you for this information. :) Peace. – GPWR Nov 16 '21 at 17:39
  • Then you state your problem not your interpretation of it. WinLoad.exe is probably not involved in your boot sequence. WinLoad.efi is an exe file but is the boot program for all modern computers. Winload.exe is for boot from non EFI machines. I believe they are the same file with two names. – user1292580 Nov 16 '21 at 18:41
  • "Can I copy the winload.exe file from someone else having the same Windows version " Try it and find out, it no like it will get any worse off that you are now. – Moab Nov 16 '21 at 18:57
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    @Moab I decided to follow your advice and copy and paste the winload.exe file to my system from another computer. The same error occurs, so I'm deducing this file is not identical on all systems. – GPWR Nov 16 '21 at 22:07
  • Unless your computer is very old winload.exe never runs. An identical copy of it called winload.efi runs. You have two copies `C:\Windows\system32\Boot` and `C:\Windows\system32`. Powering your computer off cannot damage an exe file. – user1292580 Nov 17 '21 at 23:13
  • @user1292580 Wow, OK. This is just the information I needed. My PC is not "that" old, but I'm getting a message that says that it can't boot because winload.exe is missing or corrupt. What do you consider an old computer? – GPWR Nov 18 '21 at 17:54
  • Run `chkdsk c: /r` (or whatever drive it is). This will take a while. How are you accessing the machine to copy files to it? Your motherboard/laptop manual will tell you if it is EFI or not. – user1292580 Nov 18 '21 at 19:30
  • Also `mountvol c: /s` and `chkdsk` that drive as well. – user1292580 Nov 18 '21 at 19:36
  • @G-Power please, add to your post your **hardware specifications**. – Jorge Luiz Nov 18 '21 at 19:48
  • @JorgeLuiz Thank you for the reminder. :) – GPWR Nov 18 '21 at 22:52
  • @user1292580 I decided to recover my files using Ubuntu. Therefore, Windows 10 is no longer on my machine. Thanks to everyone for your help. This being said, I think we deviated the subject to "How do I fix my winload.exe-related issue." The initial question really was "Is the winload.exe file identical on all systems running the same version of Windows 10?" Is seems to me that the answer is no, since I replaced my winload.exe and the problem persisted, but I couldn't tell for sure. – GPWR Nov 18 '21 at 23:05
  • What should be done is a comparison of two or more random winload.exe files coming from different systems with the same Windows version, in order to find out. – GPWR Nov 18 '21 at 23:05
  • @G-Power Your computer is fixed now. Do you still care about the answer to the question "Is the winload.exe file identical on all systems running the same version of Windows 10?" now that you know copying the file from a different pc did not fix the problem? The answer is no anyway, because there is probably a computer somewhere with a corrupted version of winload.exe on this planet. – Gantendo Nov 18 '21 at 23:31
  • @G-Power you can use the commands **certutil (Windows)* and **md5sum (Linux)** for comparing if two files are **equal** by their **hash codes**. Read this [tutorial](https://www.mysoftkey.com/linux/how-to-generate-signed-hash-for-a-file/). – Jorge Luiz Nov 18 '21 at 23:43
  • 1. Files that are only read can only become corrupted by hard disk faults. So if you weren't playing with the file (and thus not trying to update/change boot options etc) then you can't have caused the corruption. 2. The `winload.exe` referred to is most likely on a different EFI partition and named `winload.efi`. So pasting to C drive will do nothing. – user1292580 Nov 20 '21 at 04:06
  • What's HP Compaq Elite model? Could add that information to your post? – Jorge Luiz Nov 21 '21 at 03:15

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