Windows 8 Windows 8.1 Reset failed

den942

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 3, 2020
An attempt was made to reset Windows while keeping the personal User files intact. The reset did not finish and the PC won't boot up. I took out the hard drive to test it and check what files were on it after that Reset did not work. This is what I've found.
Any help with what to delete or rename to get it back to where it was before the reset would be greatly appreciated.
There are the following new folders, there may be more:
$SysReset
$Windows.~BT
$Windows.~WS

Windows Folder does not have any original files in it that were supposed to be kept. It has no folders for Program Files, Program Data, etc.
Windows.old has a folder named $PBROLD_WindowsApps, plus all the folders and files that it originally had before the reset.

All the diagnostic tests I've done shows the drive to be fine and all Windows folders and files are good no errors found.
 
It sounds like it failed in one of the end stages and couldn't recover. ~BT and ~WS are staging areas for the "new OS" or reset OS any everything that gets swapped out gets shuffled into windows.old.

The quickest route to a stable OS would be to backup data and do a clean install.
 
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