So after a couple of successful flights today, I pushed my luck on a third flight and MSFS hung after launching from the World Map. Progress bar got about 80% filled then nothing. For about five minutes and I hit the power switch.
Upon reboot, my mouse and keyboard were frozen at the login page. Multiple reboots, same thing. I removed all USB devices except mouse and keyboard. Same thing. Only way to get it into safe mode, was power off/on/off/on etc. until it entered safe mode. Mouse and keyboard worked fine there. Tried various options to repair startup, etc. but it couldnât find anything to fix.
Rebooted again and now my WIn 11 PIN needs to be reset. I click reset and it says it needs to download an app to do that - do you want to search the app store? OK, I click, but nothing happens. Infinite loop. (Mouse works however).
I coaxed it back into safe mode and threw in the towel and said, Reset the PC. I only use if for MFSF, so I can start over. It goes to get a fresh copy of Win 11 and after a long time, says itâs resetting the PC, then âundoing changesâ and itâs right back where it was - reset PIN and no way to do it.
Iâm at a loss. Can I download Win 11 onto a flash drive? I can get to the bios screen and that should let me choose another boot drive. Iâd run out to Best Buy and get a fresh copy of Win11 but this computer has no optical drive.
Been at this for the last four hours and need to walk away before I go looking for a Louisville Slugger to pound it to oblivion. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Personal Comments and Observations This is Not a Technical Support Response
Recommend the next time using CTRL-ALT-DEL, select Task Manager and end-tasking MSFS. Itâs a bit cleaner that way and Windows reacts okay to that versus an unexpected restart.
Unfortunately all immediate options for creating a bootable Win 11 USB involve having access to a working Win 11 install on another PC. You may want to try a local PC repair shop, Iâm sure they could provide one to you for a nominal fee, or better yet, let them take a try at your rig.
You can google windows 11 download to get the link to create a flash drive. If your PC is still accessible then try an offline security check. Click scan options in windows defender.
If you find nothing and get back up and running, I would say do a stability check. Memory being the first to look at. I prefer Karhu, but it is a pay model app. A free version is hcimemtest. Which is a similar test app but takes a lot longer to run. You also need a separate window for each core your CPU has.
Cinebench on a 20 minute run is enough to test the CPU for me.
Windows has a drive error functions under properties then select the tab Tools.
I would run HWinfo while running these tests to check your temps. If a piece of hardware is over heating then it can corrupt other devices such as M2 drives etc.
Thanks. The machine came with Win10 and a free upgrade to Win11. I canât find anywhere on the Lenovo site or Microsoft to get a download of either for free, even though I have accounts with both. Weighting against time lost to take it somewhere (itâs out of warranty), my plan is to purchase a new Win11 license (as if I had a new build) and do a clean install on a new SSD drive that is empty. I might be able to salvage some files from the other SSD that wonât boot, but am willing to start fresh and download Steam, MSFS, all my addons (payware planes, Spad, Navigraph, TDS, etc.).
I had just run hardware checks a couple of days ago and everything looked good. After all this is over, Iâll look into backup software. Iâm coming from a Mac world, so all this is new to me.
If you have the capability, you could try this cause at this point it wouldnât hurt. I got Step 1 from this forum and just added the others in my notes.
Run these commands from a CMD prompt as Admin
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /checkhealth
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /scanhealth
Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /Restorehealth
sfc /scannow
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
Restart
If that doesnât resolve your problem, use a thumb drive to create Windows 11 install media and run it. (I think itâs 8GB minimum). This is a free download. Note that the link below doesnât indicate that it includes Windows 11 but the web page does offer that option.
Run Setup (itâll get updates which can take some time).
Make sure âKeep Personal files and appsâ is shown and/or selected (in my case anyway).
Win11 has a great reset feature.
Takes a few hours but then you have a superclean OS.
Also has a âkeep my filesâ option although if you just copy âCommunity â folder to an external drive you can do a clean reset.
Or did you depress and hold the power button on the PC ?
NB. Only ever do no. 2 !!
But before you do the above, try in this order: CTRL+ALT+DEL â If that doesnât give you a shut-down/restart option then try: ALT+F4 +ENTER
100% AGREE â Run every few weeks, and always after any windows updates
HInt. Copy the above commands to a .bat file,(and save it in a good place) and run as Admin.
Even make a Link to it on Desktop, and set that link to run as Admin
Thanks everyone - Iâm back up and running! It was pretty messy and I canât quite determine a clear reason things eventually worked. Basically, this is what I tried:
Created a USB bootable disk for Windows install. Went into BIOS/UEFI and selected the USB to boot from. That worked, but soon after selecting language, the installer said I needed to insert a CD with missing drivers.
Ran the DISM and SFC commands suggested. It found corrupt files and reported them fixed. That took several passes and I was able to boot the PC normally and get past the âproblem PINâ issue, but the machine would freeze shortly after.
Went back into safe mode and tried a Win11 Reset again. That looked like it was going to work, then it got stuck, for hours, at 67% complete.
I hit the power button to kill that, an amazingly, the machine booted to my desktop with no errors. Everything was right where I left it. Noticed some remnants of things from the Reset - maybe I interrupted the cleanup. Anyhow, the machine appears to work fine.
I ran deep hardware checks on the disks (2 SSDs and 1 SATA) as well as motherboard and RAM. No errors.
Ran disk cleanup to get rid of junk.
Ran the DISM / SFC scripts again - no errors.
Created a bootable recovery disk
Performed a backup
Did a test flight in MSFS to verify my HMD, OpenXR, Spad, etc. config still worked - it did!
Thanks to all for the help and suggestions. That was a rough 24 hours!
Hopefully, now it is running well, it that way, with am occasional Hit by DISM !!