Windows corrupts after latest patch corrupt primocache Topic is solved

[BonzaiDuck]

Don't blame PrimoCache for this. I looked at all of your symptoms, which I've recently experienced myself under a more complicated situation.

With the new Windows Build 1703, they have automated the installation to such a point that it can become confused about various things.

My system has a Windows7/Windows10 dual-boot through only the MS Windows dual-boot menu for more than one Windows version. I don't know what people do in multi-boot of Win and Linux, etc. but readings suggest it is even a worse problem.

So my first symptom was an update result to Windows 10 leaving the dual-boot operation and behaviors flakey in the most consistent way. I could be working in Windows 10, to routinely choose a Restart and expecting the system to post and then return to the dual-boot menu. Depending on which OS is set to default after a countdown, the boot menu either looks like what you would expect in Win 7, or it looks like what you'd expect under Win 10 and for whichever default setting you had set. But this time, the system would post and immediately begin to boot Win 7 with no boot menu. I could then enter the Win 7 desktop and do another Restart, and the Win10 version of the boot menu would present itself; I could then enter Windows 10 and think "everything is normal." But it isn't. It isn't because hibernation -- possibly even sleep -- will fail in Windows 10. This is an indication by itself that the boot-menu and BCD file is corrupted.

But with two successive Build 1703 updates completed, this "corruption" is totally consistent between the two. That is, after the first Build1703 install and the observed behavior, I restored the system to both versions of Windows (two OSes, two system volumes on one physical disk), so that the problem didn't exist. Reinstalling Build 1703 again ended with the same problem.

Now -- YOU don't have a boot menu or two OS versions to fret about. This was MY complication.

But the Boot Menu problem wasn't all of it, since I see your own symptoms matching some others I had.

If you are going to install a major build of Windows -- an installation that reboots the computer by itself twice or more -- you need to control it and create the simplest situation that it can handle. The SSD caching volume with PrimoCache is non-standard, recognized as "Unknown format." So the first thing I would do is completely eliminate the caching SSD volume so that it is "unallocated space." I would also disable or delete any RAM-caching tasks. So I would leave the main Primo window showing a blank with no tasks.

I would also look at your Device Manager for the Disk Drives node, and expand it. Then on the title menu of DM, select "View" and make sure the "Show hidden drives" box is checked. You may then see ghosted "drives" on the tree which you may know very well are no longer (no longer!) connected to the system. Even USB thumb drives and digital cameras will show up. So uninstall these.

The most important thing, though, is to find a disk-partition utility that offers a lot of features, and -- thank God -- the best of them offer free versions which do everything one might need to do, and in addition to the backup and scheduled backup component.

Download the free versions for all of these:

Macrium Reflect Free v.6 or later

Mini Tool (free download -- not for commercial use)

EasyBCD

I would suggest based on my own experience to use Macrium to make a Rescue CD that will boot from the optical drive after post, perhaps after you set the boot-drive order in BIOS or use the override feature to boot to the UEFI-specific optical disc.

Hopefully, whether Macrium or anything else including Windows itself, you have a recent backup drive image of your boot drive. Either way, to restore them requires a rescue CD either from Windows or from the utility software like Macrium. Macrium has a feature for "fix startup and boot" problems. Hopefully, it will find a "C :" drive and locate the system volume, so you only need to proceed with the software and it will fix the BCD error.

After you have installed the Build 1703, you can recreate all of your caching tasks and everything should be fine. Also, I think it is likely that a Macrium or Mini Tool rescue disc from one system can be used on another. The value of making the rescue disc on the system intended for it comes from the software's ability to grab unique drivers used on your system and add them to its own database. I would suspect that most of the time, it still won't miss a lick, and will serve just fine.

EasyBCD allows you to recreate the system's Boot Configuration Data from scratch, and from within Windows. But you are required to delete OS entries entirely from the existing list, and then add them back in. I say -- be careful, and look for an "Apply" button when you do it, or otherwise have a Macrium Rescue disc on hand if you bork the entire thing again.

[brighttail]

I do appreciate your time here with your response. I agree with you that Primocache isn't to blame here which is why I posted about the fact that I was having similar issues with other Ram Disk and Cache programs, so it wasn't just Primocache. Samsung's magician 4.9.7 was giving me digital device signature errors, which had never happened before and still doesn't happen with the previous build. That was a special problem as it would make my computer go into and endless loop of repairing windows, even when I managed to reclone the drive.

There are other issues with the new build that have nothing to do with these programs. I got at least a half dozen BSOD message from everything due to Asus Suite III to Acronis. I have used Acronis to make a clone of my computer's OS for these types of issues. The problem is that even Acronis wasn't working. I couldn't even get the program to make a clone, be it through the windows version or a USB drive I booted from.

I should note that I originally had done the update to the Creator's build instead of a clean install. In fact I have done the update for all my 5 builds and none of them had an issue. Sadly I felt the computer was lagging a bit which is why I went with a clean install. I stripped everything out of the computer that were 'extras', so no optical drive, no extra HDD/SDD and I didn't even install PrimoCache until it I was fully updated and all of my programs were up and (working in some fashion). Since Acronis wasn't working I did try Macrium but had the same issues. It would either not work or when it did, it obviously didn't clone properly or it wouldn't load properly back up.

In the end I went back to the Anniversary build and everything is working just fine. I have deferred further updates as I know I'm not the only one having issues with this new update build and clean installs. I'll hold off as long as I can and then try an upgrade first.

Concerning the Secure Boot I really dont' like having it off as I use several M.2 drives. I know now how to disable it if I need and I have the PK key file saved properly if I need to turn it off in the future.

As it is. I'm going to leave things with the Anniversary build for now and let Windows do some updating and bug fixing before i move this computer over.

[BonzaiDuck]

Sure -- that makes sense -- making the most sense if it continues providing Windows Updates. As uncertain as I see that diagnoses can be mis-created or misconstrued, I would wager -- I would speculate -- that reverting to the Anniversary or 1607 Build could be maintained if you don't follow the invitation and go to that site for downloading the Update Assistant. I would think as long as that invitation appears in Windows Update, it should continue to update Build 1607. I only have maybe two sample observations to make me think that, so it's at an anecdotal level and inconclusive.

I have, however, logged on this time to present another finding of my own (my own hardware, my own configuration, multi-boot etc.).

It could even be unknown to Romex-PrimoCache Support
at this time, or their hardware is more accommodating. One poster -- I could scroll to find it but no need -- observed that a reboot leading to his unbootable system showed a Windows message about "Scanning, Diagnosing, Repairing . .{ . . . . . . . . . . . . . } disk volume" or something like that.

This was another problem I experienced during the first problematic install when I noticed the multi-boot menu problem.

And since I'd turned off L2 / SSD-caching in Primo (deleting all my tasks) to install Build 1703, I didn't get around to creating the cache again until today. I created the L2 cache, assigned it "MAX" to the HDD, and worked or played most of today with the computer. I got the itch to reboot into Windows 7, check for updates, and evaluate the occupied space on the 120GB volume for it. OK, fine. Then from Win 7, I restarted to the boot menu, selected Windows 10. No problem, but it throws that notice about "Diagnosing [etc.]" with what appears to be a GUID. It appears very briefly, as if there were no delay associated with it.

We don't know how the MS people coded Windows for that. It could be that it enumerates drive volumes and disks, and throws that message when it encounters a non-NTFS, nonFAT32 or other MS file format. EVen if it throws a message about "Diagnosing / Repairing," the question is whether it really repairs anything for just finding the Primo-Cache SSD volume. It doesn't appear that way, but it should take more time to evaluate.

It is actually a good sign that we've all come back here to discuss these developments. Even if inconclusive, it is not an entirely random event. It's not likely to occur unless there is a common cause or situation. Romex would more likely have tested Windows 10 with a single-OS configuration. There may be other disk or disk-related scenarios they didn't encounter. But we loyal Primo-Cache followers are coming back here to discuss it. I had been posting on AnandTech under the same handle, and you can look for a recent thread that now begins "SOLVED:" Dual-Boot Win7/Win10 Resurrected with Creators Update." But nobody there is reporting anything similar. I ended the thread to simply explain how I fixed it, after following advice and examining the Win Update Log files. You have to convert them for access and reading by executing a command line in elevated PowerShell.

[brighttail]

I'm not sure I understand your fix or what you were fixing in Powershell.

Concerning your notation about Diagnosing/repairing, yeah I'm not 100% what was going on with that. It happens so fast and it says something like "Volume ??\\" So my first guess is it was trying to repair the cache itself as it was being loaded from memory into RAM? Does that make sense? I tried to find a log on it but didn't find anything. Admittedly I didn't look very hard as by this time I was about 6 hours into something I expected to take 90minutes max and just wanted my machine to work.

It is my experience that traditionally, clean installs perform much better than 'updated' or 'converted' installations, so this whole thing has me rather flummoxed. Right now it seems that the best thing is to either go through the update assistant and let it do its update and things SHOULD work or I can continue to defer until a later time and try again. Thankfully I have a few USB drives so I have the ISOs for both builds and I have a good and working clone backup of my OS as it stands now, so if i were to try again and fail, i 'should' be able to come back to where I am now.

Honestly I have put far too much time into this and while I love Primocache it isn't the end of the world if i can't use it for a while. I can't help but wonder if some of what is going on is Microsofts attempt at 'breaking' certain programs so people have to use the Microsoft services. For example breaking cloning software so people have to use Microsoft backup. In the case of Primocache I could see them breaking it as they view it as an unnecessary program with modern SSDs/M.2 drives. A little conspiracy theorist but something has changed.

Primocache had to put out a fix when the new update started causing issues with Secure Boot, so obviously Microsoft has done something with the UEFI BIOS, be it the Secure Boot or Multi-boot.

[Babel17]

I uninstalled Primocache and then installed the latest version, instead of installing on top, and now I no longer get that quick message at every boot saying Windows is repairing some Volume with a very long naming scheme. I was getting that for days and I tried a lot of different things. I think uninstalling Primocache, and rebooting, then installing this latest version fixed things. I guess this latest update from Microsoft has had some unintended consequences.

I just now went through a lot of effort trying to figure out why after signing in I was getting a prolonged black screen. Googling this suggested it was due to having two displays, and two display adapters, working. It took a lot of futzing, I ended up taking off the HDMI cable from my nVidia card, and letting my onboard Intel video work alone. That took care of the black screen and after some juggling, which I'd hate to have to try to reproduce, I got my nVidia back up as my display adapter.

Somebody suggested this latest major update from Microsoft did wreak the kind of havoc I was getting, and I hazily recall that just prior to this my nVidia Control Panel went missing and I had to reinstall my drivers to get it back. I didn't use the driver uninstaller utility, though I did use it after this black screen issue hit.

Lol, and I also had the fun of getting L.A. Noire running on Windows 10. I tried everything, and something must have worked because I started playing it again after several years of it being off my system.

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm not sure I understand your fix or what you were fixing in Powershell.

Concerning your notation about Diagnosing/repairing, yeah I'm not 100% what was going on with that. It happens so fast and it says something like "Volume ??\\" So my first guess is it was trying to repair the cache itself as it was being loaded from memory into RAM? Does that make sense? I tried to find a log on it but didn't find anything. Admittedly I didn't look very hard as by this time I was about 6 hours into something I expected to take 90minutes max and just wanted my machine to work.

It is my experience that traditionally, clean installs perform much better than 'updated' or 'converted' installations, so this whole thing has me rather flummoxed. Right now it seems that the best thing is to either go through the update assistant and let it do its update and things SHOULD work or I can continue to defer until a later time and try again. Thankfully I have a few USB drives so I have the ISOs for both builds and I have a good and working clone backup of my OS as it stands now, so if i were to try again and fail, i 'should' be able to come back to where I am now.

Honestly I have put far too much time into this and while I love Primocache it isn't the end of the world if i can't use it for a while. I can't help but wonder if some of what is going on is Microsofts attempt at 'breaking' certain programs so people have to use the Microsoft services. For example breaking cloning software so people have to use Microsoft backup. In the case of Primocache I could see them breaking it as they view it as an unnecessary program with modern SSDs/M.2 drives. A little conspiracy theorist but something has changed.

Primocache had to put out a fix when the new update started causing issues with Secure Boot, so obviously Microsoft has done something with the UEFI BIOS, be it the Secure Boot or Multi-boot.

That seems just a bit too paranoid, no more than thoughts I've had about M$ beginning with the last spate of troubles over Win 7 Update just a few months before the Anniversary Win 10 build 1607.

The reason I won't go with a clean install at this point, as Babel17 suggests, is the sunk cost of time and effort I spent since October 2016 in setting up and cleaning up a dual-boot Win7/win10 configuration -- but I already said that.

Also, I would ask Babel17 to review again his actions after installing Win 10 Build 1703 with PrimoCache uninstalled, and then reinstalling it. Did he forget to create an SSD-cache? Someone also mentioned their idea that the "Diagnosing/Repairing" the GUID or drive volume returned just for implementing RAM caching. So I'm inclined to play around with the Primo configurations some more to find out specifically what makes the message appear and what makes it go away. But it had disappeared when I had no PrimoCache tasks defined.

For me, the coup-de-grace was restoration of dual-boot functionality. After all the attention I gave Win 10 before Build 1703, the error logs are pretty clean. There are only SxS errors for Nuance and Cyberlink applications thoughtlessly programmed to look for 32-bit C++ redistributables on a 64-bit OS and system before loading the 64-bit redistributables. VSS is working -- everything is working. "Warning" events are limited again to benign notices with which we're all familiar.

So the question remains: is the brief message about a drive volume at boot-time benign? Or indicative of something that needs more attention?

ALSO, ANOTHER THOUGHT I HAD for coming back to this forum and thread a second time so far this morning.

How many of us are using the SAME PHYSICAL DISK DRIVE ( for me, 960 Pro) for OS(es') system-volumes AND PrimoCache "L2STORAGE" caching volume as well? I may try SOON to see what happens when I add a 250GB 960 EVO to PCIE-x16-2 slot, which will drop my graphics card to x8 and provide 4 lanes for the drive directly through the CPU's own PCIE controller.

Put it another way. Does anybody using a separate non-boot physical SSD caching disk have this "diagnosing, scanning, repairing . . . Volume { . . . . . . GUID . . . ]" message? I figure the chance, given my knowledge at this point, is 50-50. But I'm looking for some remedy.

Yo! Does "SUPPORT" have anything to say about this yet? Despite the boot-time Win 10 momentary message, I have everything working fine in this rig with no boot-menu problems (for dual-boot), normal event logs, (so far) sleep-state tests successful. And the PrimoCache configuration seems to be working without a hitch. So is it a benign though undesired notice of Win 10 at boot-time related to Primo?

[brighttail]

So I have two Samsung SM961's M.2 drives and a Samsung 850pro.

I have put a 20gb partition on the Samsung 850pro that I use for the L2 cache and that is not a OS boot drive.

I did attempt to recreate that L2 partition and was still getting the Scanning/repairing messages. Furthermore I was getting that message even after I uninstalled Primocache because I thought it was causing the issue.

Bottom line the problem didn't start until I installed Primocache and set up a primary and l2 cache. It persisted even when I recreated these caches and it continued even after I uninstalled Primocache. The one thing I did not Try was to delete that 20gb partition after uninstalling Primocache. I didn't even think about it as I was too annoyed with all the issues I had.

[BonzaiDuck]

That must be the most logical thing to give attention to, then. It's the non-standard Primo L2 volume.

However. Although I think we can complicate the troubleshooting on this, I just discovered that raising Samsung Magician -- latest version as of January -- shows that the "drive is not supported" even though it identifies it correctly as a Samsung 960 Pro. Restarting Windows, Magician behaves normally with the Pro drive. But a little later, "drive not supported" again.

In Control Panel -> Programs and Features I uninstalled Magician and then selected the Samsung NVMe driver software and selected Repair. It completed properly. The Repair of the Sammy NVMe driver requires a Restart, and after getting to the dual-boot Windows 10 option, it continues to the fancy pre-logon screen with the scenery. There was no "Diagnosing . . . . {GUID} Volume" or disk message. I then reinstalled Magician and nothing seems amiss. Throughout all of these steps, the L2 caching volume was active: nothing was changed in the primo caching tasks.

If I don't move us any closer to resolving this possibly benign difficulty, at least it is something others can try as we continue to sort it out.

[brighttail]

Interesting as I couldn't even get Samsung 4.9.7 working on the new version of Windows. I kept getting a "digital device signature" error which would completely mess up my computer. I could install and use Samsung Magician 5.0, but that doesn't recognize my OEM Samsung SM961s. It is VERY odd that the newer version, which is made for the Samsung 960s. Just out of curiosity are you using the windows NVMe driver or the one from the Samsung site which I believe is in version 2.1. There was version 2.0, but 2.1 should recognize the new Samsung 960s.

Samsung responded to my query saying version 4.9.7 probably won't work with the newer version of Windows, because they didn't bother to update the driver signatures for the OEM projects. That would fall to Lenovo, Dell and/or HP to do that since it is a drive meant for those laptops and is OEM. Still my "scanning/repair" was happening without Samsung Magician installed at all.

That must be the most logical thing to give attention to, then. It's the non-standard Primo L2 volume.

However. Although I think we can complicate the troubleshooting on this, I just discovered that raising Samsung Magician -- latest version as of January -- shows that the "drive is not supported" even though it identifies it correctly as a Samsung 960 Pro. Restarting Windows, Magician behaves normally with the Pro drive. But a little later, "drive not supported" again.

In Control Panel -> Programs and Features I uninstalled Magician and then selected the Samsung NVMe driver software and selected Repair. It completed properly. The Repair of the Sammy NVMe driver requires a Restart, and after getting to the dual-boot Windows 10 option, it continues to the fancy pre-logon screen with the scenery. There was no "Diagnosing . . . . {GUID} Volume" or disk message. I then reinstalled Magician and nothing seems amiss. Throughout all of these steps, the L2 caching volume was active: nothing was changed in the primo caching tasks.

If I don't move us any closer to resolving this possibly benign difficulty, at least it is something others can try as we continue to sort it out.

[BonzaiDuck]

Interesting as I couldn't even get Samsung 4.9.7 working on the new version of Windows. I kept getting a "digital device signature" error which would completely mess up my computer. I could install and use Samsung Magician 5.0, but that doesn't recognize my OEM Samsung SM961s. It is VERY odd that the newer version, which is made for the Samsung 960s. Just out of curiosity are you using the windows NVMe driver or the one from the Samsung site which I believe is in version 2.1. There was version 2.0, but 2.1 should recognize the new Samsung 960s.

Samsung responded to my query saying version 4.9.7 probably won't work with the newer version of Windows, because they didn't bother to update the driver signatures for the OEM projects. That would fall to Lenovo, Dell and/or HP to do that since it is a drive meant for those laptops and is OEM. Still my "scanning/repair" was happening without Samsung Magician installed at all.

That must be the most logical thing to give attention to, then. It's the non-standard Primo L2 volume.

However. Although I think we can complicate the troubleshooting on this, I just discovered that raising Samsung Magician -- latest version as of January -- shows that the "drive is not supported" even though it identifies it correctly as a Samsung 960 Pro. Restarting Windows, Magician behaves normally with the Pro drive. But a little later, "drive not supported" again.

In Control Panel -> Programs and Features I uninstalled Magician and then selected the Samsung NVMe driver software and selected Repair. It completed properly. The Repair of the Sammy NVMe driver requires a Restart, and after getting to the dual-boot Windows 10 option, it continues to the fancy pre-logon screen with the scenery. There was no "Diagnosing . . . . {GUID} Volume" or disk message. I then reinstalled Magician and nothing seems amiss. Throughout all of these steps, the L2 caching volume was active: nothing was changed in the primo caching tasks.

If I don't move us any closer to resolving this possibly benign difficulty, at least it is something others can try as we continue to sort it out.

Well, sir, the plot thickens again. Yes -- I'm using Magician 5.x because that was the version offered for my 960 Pro and EVO. I had looked at 961/951 M.2 drives, and I think one was rebadged as Lenovo. When I found out about the uselessness of Magician with those drives, it was only one factor that caused me to back away.

What I suspect is that the NVMe Windows native driver in Win 10 should work just as well as the Sammy version, but I couldn't tell how they might differ. In that respect, since I have (so far) stopped experiencing the messages at boot time, my fix of simply repairing the Sammy driver and reinstalling Magician may have done the trick. You'll hear more from me, as to whether it does . . . or doesn't. But I'm thinking the native Windows driver might also eliminate the problem message, even if there isn't a real problem. For that, who could tell at this point?

==========COMING BACK WITH AN UPDATE ==========
I've spent enough time sorting all of this out that I can only post it and hope it does someone else some good. My dual-boot configuration is just a complication which nobody else so far here has in common with me. But the BCD problems overlap, and the symptoms of a Windows "Diagnose/repair" detour in boot to pre-logon display which mention a GUID. We could probably match that GUID to a device and volume, but it passes away too quickly to make note.

The overlap in hardware seems to involve Samsung NVMe M.2 storage.

The overlap we all show here in software is two-fold: PrimoCache and the Samsung driver and Magician tool.

My fix -- which may or may not help others -- was to either repair or completely uninstall then reinstall both the Samsung driver and software.

And I had to use a tool like Macrium, Mini Tool or EasyBCD to resolve my boot problem.

But I've got Creators Update Build 1703 installed perfectly with good Event Logs in dual-boot with an equally robust Windows 7 installation.

Without doing any clean installs since I built this computer . . . Primocache Rocks! Primocache Rules!