Can't boot two machines after windows updates

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Leesamn
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Re: Can't boot two machines after windows updates

Post by Leesamn »

I'd like to mark this topic as unsolved because this morning my main machine started having this issue again.

To clarify: This was never a hardware issue. If it was a hardware issue i would not have seen identical behavior on two machines. I also should not be seeing it again, as i am now, once the faulty memory module had been replaced and the replacement verified free of corruption. There were no visibly unclean shutdowns and no blue screens at all on either machine and i am having this issue again days later after a reboot.

I left write caching off entirely on both machines this time so that is likely not the issue. I also left the system reserved partition out of the caching task. Could a representative reach out from romex software? If this cannot be solved i will need a refund on my two license purchased.

I spent the last few days restoring backups to this machine so ideally i would like to avoid wiping it and start again.
Davey126
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Re: Can't boot two machines after windows updates

Post by Davey126 »

I suggest you raise a support ticket. While Romex reps monitor these boards on occation it probably is not the proper forum to request formal assistance.

With the write cache disabled it seems increasing likely there is a driver conflict with something else running in your environment. Memory corruption (hardware or software based) is obviously on the table too but that one will be difficult to isolate/prove at the application level.
Leesamn
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Re: Can't boot two machines after windows updates

Post by Leesamn »

I've sent an email to technical support. Waiting on a reply now.

I used a live USB distribution to stress test the hardware before installing windows this time. I let the tests run for a long time to ensure the hardware was sound before i wasted time installing all this again. So i'm fairly certain this isn't hardware related but more likely some sort of software conflict.

It's particularly troubling because i don't know which reboot will crash the system. Everything was running very well, i was getting almost 40% cache hits and it had used all but 20ish gbs on the SSD cache.
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Jaga
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Re: Can't boot two machines after windows updates

Post by Jaga »

Just curious if you received any official support after you submitted your email Leesamn. I'm also having issues related to reboots, where the system reports it wasn't shut down cleanly. Without PrimoCache running it almost never has reboot issues. I can continue using the software but due to the unclean restart report the L2 cache is invalidated, and this happening every 2-3 days pretty much invalidates my use of the software, as it can take the L2 3+ days to fill.

My setup has a hardware level RAID 0 boot volume implementation, that has never had a problem on it's own. I've tried both L1 cached writes on and off, with no discernable difference. The machine still has dirty boots regularly.
Leesamn
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Re: Can't boot two machines after windows updates

Post by Leesamn »

They were much more responsive when i contacted them by email. They recommended i disconnect the cache drive and try to boot again. After i did that startup repair was able to repair what was preventing it from booting. Looking into the event logs after all that i found it was a .Net installation running during windows update that corrupted my NTFS volume.

I ran chkdsk, sfc and dism to be sure all the windows files were intact and then i finished the updates. Once updates were all complete i recreated the caching task and have been running stable across many reboots since.

I've provided as much information to romex as i could through all this, i believe they're still working on the issue.
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