Acer Aspire GX-785-EB11 Desktop "Windows could not update the computers boot configuration"

My Acer Aspires GX-785-EB11 won't boot to windows. The issue began after shuting down computer using a hard close. The next day a was created by blue screen which gives me initially two options. Option 2 turn off your pc and the first Troubleshoot (reset your PC or see advaced options). Clicking on troubleshoot brings up 6 other options. The system restore, system image recovery and uninstall updates don't work with error messages. Both uninstall options ran into problem,restore error you must specify operating system, restore image states unable to locate find a system image . UEFI firmware option works and command prompt. Command prompt windows opens in X:/Windows/system32 . I Have tried a number of fixes on youtube and internet. The problem most commands like sfc /scannow, bootrec /fixboot or Dism dont work or generate an error message. Sfc indicates access denied error message . I created a bootable installation media USB using Rufus with a windows 10 ISO downloaded from Windows official site. Everyting goes well until setup software get to the last title on list Finish where it stops and an error Message is generated " Windows could not update the computers boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed. I have tried various changes to bios with no change.. It appear the boot sector is corrupt on system. My system has a 128GB SSD card which inserts onto board and lies flat held by a small screw. I am guessing Windows 10 Home edition is located here as my systems boots very fast. Any help on the above would greatly be appreciated .

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billsey

Do you just have the SSD for storage or also an HDD? Usually that errors appears because it was having troubles writing to the UEFI partition on the drive. If you first wipe all partitions before selecting the whole drive as unallocated space for installing, it will create an uncorrupted UEFI partition as well as the other hidden partitions Windows needs in order to run. My assumption here is you already have given up on any data that used to be on the drive if you're doing a from scratch install off a USB flash drive...

MikeB5

Thank you for your reply. Yes my computer came with a Seagate HD 3TB. I purchased a new WD 2TB HD. Both show up in Bios and when I bring up command prompt can access both HD. So I take you recommend I format the HD. I disconnected the 3TB HD after installing the new WD HD and received the same error when computer was restarted. Also used the USB with error message state in my first post. Do I need to format the WD HD. I assumed it was already formated. The 128 GD SSD HD came with computer. SSD is in the form of a sim memory chip type card however connects to main board via connection on the end of the chip and a small screw hold it down on board. I removed card and computer would not boot with black screen with an error message.

billsey

You are setup to boot from the SSD, and booting from there is appropriate. No need to do anything with the HDD except format it as one big partition (use Quick Format and it'll only take a few seconds). When you reinstall Windows, don't install it on the HDD, install it on the SSD.

MikeB5

Hi Trailblazer tried copying windows 10 on SSD. Disconnected both HDD’s. Made changes to bios in order for USB windows media to be copied. All went well until instructions near the end just before moving on to finish and I get the same error message “windows could not update the computers boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed. “

MikeB5

I noticed when using USB media windows setup displays a list of 4 partions under drive 0. A number of commands are listed below table with one being an option to format. Size of M2 drive is listed on bios as 128GB. Partion 3 indicates total size of 118.1 GB and 2.0 GB free. Partion 1is titled system, partion 2 is MSR reserved and Partion 4 is Recovery. Should I use the format function to fix the SSD boot issue . Would that work. Would I loose my Windows key as I did not receive any documentation from retailers. Windows 10 Home Edition was preloaded on computer. Thanks.

billsey

When you do a reinstall from scratch, you delete all four of those partitions, then select the unallocated space (the entire drive) and the installer creates needed partitions for you. No need for the format options, just delete each of the partitions.

MikeB5

Thank for your help. It was a corrupt file in my ESP partition on my M.2 drive. Replaced the EFI directory content with new one and computer than started up fine. 😁😁