Windows 10 1803 failed upgrade

[#1]

My laptop attempted to upgrade to 1809 yesterday. Unfortunately it failed miserably, but it left my laptop unusable. It won't boot to windows properly, the best I get Is a black desktop with a recycle bin and an error message about not being able to find desktop.ini
Other times it goes to a blue select keyboard layout and them to a recovery screen. It refuses to rollback to the previous version and it seems to have 2 version if 10 to choose from. Oddly on the bike splash I also get a message serial number not found...... Anyone any ideas of how to get back to a working system short of a full reinstall   is it possible to do a repair install, is install on top of windows like you could with previous versions and keep files intact 

[#2]

Penfold

I had the same problem and after three days of trying to get it to work I used my wife's computer and went on the Microsoft site and clicked on contact and arranged a call back. A very nice lady from the Philippines rang me and talked me through a fix. I had to press the power button on and then off five times and a screen came up with troubleshoot and an option to revert back to the previous version of Windows 10 which it did after quite some time and gave me a working computer.

Derek 

[#3]

Thanks. I can get to the option to roll back, but then I get a message that it's unable to roll back to the previous version. No system restore or other troubleshooting tool appear to work. When I do get to a desktop nothing works except task manager, and can't access file explorer etc, it says no apps installed.

[#4]

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Can you get to a command prompt (Admin)?

Might be totally stuffed but have you tried running chkdsk? i.e.  chkdsk c: /r /x

Saved me a lot of grief over the years.

No guarantee it will work but one can only try.

Do you have an original installation disk? I've found them to be like gold when the drive fouls up. Just insert and select 'recovery mode' when it boots. Unlike the pre-installed versions, they do restore without losing every thing.

Worse case is a reinstall via the backup disks that you made. Not good if they are a year or so old.

[#5]

I've downloaded the win10 installation media and have a disk. I have read that reset your PC, gives you an option to keep files etc

[#6]

I should have said earlier that the young lady from Microsoft suggested downloading windows 10 onto a memory stick and doing a reinstall that would keep files and software which I did and it updated to 1809 as well.

As she said it kept all software, I keep files on external drives.

Derek

[#7]

Thanks. I do have all my important files backed up, but never had to do a recovery

[#8]

Well.... Even booting from the recovery media I burnt, won't let me reset the PC. I just get the same option as without. I can get to a desktop, and managed to view the drive by opening another toolbar from the right click taskbar menu. I can only see folders though. I can't see how I'm going to repair this, so just hoping the backups worked🤥. I used aseus to-do backup. Another odd thing is this serial number not found on The BIOS splash screen. HP forums suggest it's a mobo issue. The laptop is an HP g61 410sa. I can access BIOS ok. I suppose I could also pull the drive and slave to my son's desktop, to copy my personal files. How do you get into safe mode on 10, and is it possible to reinstall over the old os like in the past and preserve files, ie a repair install.....

[#9]

1809 is a typo surely?

Download the latest Windows .iso from here, open it by double clicking on it and then run the setup.exe in the root folder.

[#10]

Changed title, but the issue remains the same, the upgrade has totally trashed my system. Of note my laptop update was the one my laptop downloaded via Windows update. I updated my sons desktop via a dvd created with the media creation tool. Thus went without a hitch.

[#11]

In post #1 you asked how to do a repair install, have you tried what I suggested?

[#12]

Brownie. In post #5 I note that I have downloaded the Windows 10 iso , and burnt to a cd, this was done via the media creation tool from the Microsoft site.

[#13]

Misspelling my name gets you nowhere

[#14]

Nothing to lose, try chkdsk c: /r /x leave it, can take a few hours.

[#15]

• It seems quite likely that your hard disk is faulty and that is what has given you the problems.  If your files are backed up you have nothing to lose by following the suggestion to run chkdsk.  I usually use chkdsk /b (/x)
• To perform a repair re-install you need to start Windows normally then use your installation media (as if you were doing a version upgrade).  Booting from the installation media won't work (as you discovered).
• No point in trying the repair until you have established that there are no problems with your hard disk.
• You lose all restore points in an upgrade so System Restore was never going to help.  But the fact that you cannot go back to the previous version is (to me) indicative that something is quite seriously wrong, which is why I suspect your hard drive is faulty