Windows 11 Unusual response to sfc /scannow?

MikeHawthorne

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Hi Everyone...

I ran sfc /scannow a few minutes ago and after starting the process I got the message your computer needs to restart to complete process.
I've never seen that before, it always just started counting down the process.

I restarted and then ran it again, it gave my the message, repair in progress you need to restart to complete the process.

Has anyone seen this or know what this means, maybe something new in Windows 11?

Mike
 
Solution
That is common. sfc has to replace components in order to fix them and if they are critical components they can only be swapped out in the early stages of the boot process hence the reboot. Fro time to time you have to repeat this process 2 or more times. I think the most I had to was 4 reboots. If it doesn't go away after 5 reboots then you make have a non repairable issue and may need to do a Windows reset or clean install.
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That is common. sfc has to replace components in order to fix them and if they are critical components they can only be swapped out in the early stages of the boot process hence the reboot. Fro time to time you have to repeat this process 2 or more times. I think the most I had to was 4 reboots. If it doesn't go away after 5 reboots then you make have a non repairable issue and may need to do a Windows reset or clean install.
 
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Solution
HI Neemo

Thanks for the response, in all my years computing I've never had that happen before.
I ran it again after the second reboot, and it said that it didn't find anything.

I guess there are always new things that pop up in Windows.

I've been having a problem with my computer crashing, that I can't figure out, I just got an error message "finally, (it usually just freezes and that's it) so I have some place to start.
After running every scan I know of and suspecting that my graphic card was going bad, finally having the error code I found that I wasn't the only one, and my video card wasn't failing.

It appears that something is causing programs (games) that are running the Unreal Engine are crashing all of a sudden.
I haven't found anyway to fix it, upgraded everything, backdated video drivers, etc.

If I can't figure it out, I'll get all the information together and post on here to see if anyone knows anything about it. I can get stuff to run by turning down the performance to very low settings, apparently it doesn't trigger the process that causes the crash.

Thanks again...

Mike
 
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Neemobeer said:
f it doesn't go away after 5 reboots then you make have a non repairable issue and may need to do a Windows reset or clean install.
Click to expand...
A possible alternative to reinstalling in that instance, is to enter Recovery Environment by Shift + Clicking the Restart button, and accessing Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt. Then use sfc /scannow /offbootdir=D:\ /offwindir=D:\Windows from the Recovery Environment. Note the large Windows partition is usually D in there, as C is often occupied by Reserved. Sometimes it is C, or another letter. It is safe to experiment with the letters.
 
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Hi
I should have mentioned that I have already restored a System Image from back when everything was working fine. I've also restored DX, and both gone back and updated my graphics drivers. I'm going to run Memtest later today.

PS. I think after a week of messing around, I have gotten it fixed. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I was looking through Nvidea control panel, not the app, the one that's always there, and it has a page for editing 3D display setting, I don't think I've ever really changed anything in there.

Any way, at the bottom of the page was a button that said Default, and when I clicked it, it said, will restore the video card settings to the way that it comes when new. I figured, what have I got to lose?

So I clicked it, then I restarted my computer, I ran Conan Exiles at the settings I had been using and then started turning up the settings. I had been running it on low to keep it from crashing. Since it didn't crash, I told it to set it to the settings that the game advised, and it set everything to Ultra.

I played for half an hour, and it didn't crash, would have only taken a few seconds before.
I then played 3 other games that were crashing, and they all worked on Ultra as well.

So let's hope that's it.

Mike
 
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Hi again...

Well, the next time I started, it wouldn't log in and start the graphics card.
I had to run it from the onboard graphics, nothing would get it to load the graphics from the video card, I even reinstalled the graphics drivers. I thought that might prompt the video card to work. But it didn't, it went through the whole process and said complete but it didn't start the video card and after rebooting nothing.

PS,
I unplugged the computer, held down the start button for a minute, and let it sit overnight.

It booted normally when I plugged it back in, I know it wasn't overheated, so the reset of the boot instructions was the only difference.

It was time anyway and since it was working I used it to order a new Falcon Talon, with an Nvidia GeForce 3080 video card and 32 Gigabytes of really fast ram and an I9 processor.

I'm looking forward to having more ram, I kept getting low memory messages when editing 3D graphics, at 4K settings. I meant to put more in the old one, but never got around to it.

So right now it's working, but I know that if I stress it by playing Conan Exiles it will crash again.
So I'll baby it until the new one shows up.

Mike
 
Last edited:
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I unplugged the computer, held down the start button for a minute, and let it sit overnight.

It booted normally when I plugged it back in, I know it wasn't overheated, so the reset of the boot instructions was the only difference.
Click to expand...
On modern computers, the boot settings are stored in nonvolatile memory, so aren't affected by a power drain, and can only be reset from within the BIOS settings interface. What it does do is restart the embedded controller and interrupt the clock. This is usually enough to be effective, unless the problem is actually caused by BIOS settings recently changed.
 
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When I first did this, the problem was that due to the power going on and off repeatedly, my computer wouldn't boot in the morning when I got up. I had no idea what to do, since I couldn't ever get into the bios or run my system image restore disk.

I called the company (Falcon Northwest) and told them what was happening. They said the master boot instructions had probably been corrupted, since the computer wasn't on at the time. And that draining the power would cause it to replace the corrupted instructions.

I was somewhat skeptical, but I did it.
To my surprise, the computer booted right up the next day and worked fine.

Yesterday I just did it since I couldn't find anything else that would get it to work, to my surprise the computer booted up with the video working.
I really honestly didn't think it was going to do anything.
 
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