There might be an instance where after a power outage, your Windows system won’t be able to boot. In this case, any attempt to boot the system would only take you to a loading screen.
Windows computer won’t boot after power outage
If your Windows 11/10 computer won’t boot after a power outage, here are some solutions that might help you fix the problem.
- Repair BCD
- Run Startup Repair
- Repair Your Computer using Installation media.
1] Repair BCD
Starting Windows in Safe Mode would come first to the mind, but it may take you to the blue screen displaying the message “Your PC needs to be repaired“. The sudden power failure sometimes may corrupt the system files and also sometimes damage the system reserved partitions like Boot Configuration Data (BCD). You may want to boot from a Rescue Disk in order to resolve the problem with the system, but damage to BCD may cause trouble booting the Windows system.
2] Run Startup Repair
If you can reach the Advanced Startup Options Screen, you should run Startup Repair. That should do the job!
If that does not help, you may select Command Prompt. Using the CMD, you can access the more advanced built-in Windows tools. Here are a few things you can try, depending on the error code you receive. See which applies to your system and carry them out:
- Run System File Checker to replace the corrupted Windows system files or Drivers
- Run DISM tool to repair Windows image.
- Use the Command prompt to rebuild your MBR, using the built-in bootrec tool.
3] Repair Your Computer using Installation media
If nothing helps, you may have to boot from Windows Installation media. Connect the Windows USB flash drive containing Windows installation files in the USB port and press the Power button
Press Enter or any key to boot from the USB device.
Select “Repair Your Computer “ option at the bottom left of the install screen window.
Advanced Startup Options will start in a new window. In the Advanced Startup Options, Click on Command Prompt which opens the Command Prompt window.
Type the following command and hit Enter which scans all the disks for windows installations.
bootrec/rebuildbcd
If you see the following message on the command line, Enter “Yes” or ‘Y’ to add the installation to the boot list to complete the operation successfully.
Total identified Windows installations: 1.
Add installation to boot list? Yes/No/All:
Total identified Windows installations: 0
If you see the following message on the command line, you need to remove BCD store manually and then try to rebuild again.
Total identified Windows installations: 0
The operation completed successfully
If you had earlier backed up your BCD Store, then you have another option. You may restore that good BCD file. To do that, type the following command and hit Enter to complete the operation-
bcdedit /import f:\01.bcd
This will restore your BCD file named as 01.bcd on your D Drive. So you need to select the Drive letter and the name of your BCD file as the case may be.
As mentioned earlier, the sudden unexpected power outages could damage the window files, so it is highly recommended to run the System File Checker as well, at the command prompt in order to repair the corrupted windows files. SFC /scannow scans the system files and helps to replace all the corrupted versions with the Microsoft versions. Follow these steps to repair the damaged window files using System File Checker.
Restart the system and see if your computer boots normally.
I hope these solutions will help you to resolve the issue.
Unexpected outages can also cause major damage to system peripherals in the motherboard, memory, and power supply, so it is highly recommended to install UPS to save your system from future disaster.
More suggestions here: Windows PC will not boot up or start.
