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Messed up boot, red screen and confusion

rege0039

Member
Hi,

My Surface Pro 3 (i5, 4, 128) is dual boot between 8.1 and Windows 10 Preview 1041. Or at least it was ..

A while since when in Windows 10 the machine froze when it was plugged in to my TV.

I rebooted and all seemed OK, Windows 10 was fine.

Windows 8.1 was not however. It refused to run any Windows Store Apps, can't remember the error message it gave. Tracked it down to permission on ALL APPLICATIONS and got it working again, but it wouldn't play any media giving error code 0x8007005.

I got fed up and decided to do a Refresh on my Windows 8 installation. I did this from a Recovery USB stick. All went OK. I re-installed desktop apps. Then I noticed that there was no option to boot in to Windows 10 on start up.

I went in to recovery option and choose advanced start up and used that to reset the start menu timer to 5 seconds from the zero it was not set to. I also tried to make Windows 10 the default operating systems again.

When I rebooted I got an error;

"digital signature could not be verified" on \windows\system32\winload.efi error 0xc0000428 and told to press the Windows key to select a different operating system.

Pressing any Windows keys made no difference at all.

I researched this, went in to the BIOS boot and turned off secure boot.

I can now boot in to either OS but now get a. red start up screen with the word 'Surface' in black. Looks interesting but isn't really what I want.

Is there a way to make the boot up stop freaking out over winload.efi ?

Anything else I can do ? I would like to be back to the point of a black boot up and two working operating systems to choose from as I was before !

Thanks for any and all help.
 

leeshor

Well-Known Member
Since the problem originated due to a Windows 10 install this is being moved to that forum.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
The Red screen is a direct result of disabling Secure Boot.
When Win 10 was installed the boot loader was updated to the Win10 boot loader. When you refreshed Win 8.1 the boot loader got downgraded to Win 8.1 boot loader thus the error booting Win 10.
I think you need to do a Win 10 repair to restore the Win 10 boot files.
Enabling secure boot will douse the Red Screen.
 
OP
R

rege0039

Member
That make sense

Is there a way to get the Windows 10 boot loader back without having to re-install everything ?

Can I do it from the start up screen ?

Not sure this 'started with a Windows 10 problem' as it is

1) On a Surface Pro 3

And

2) Started when I refreshed Windows 8.1

But hey-ho, as long as people read it and give some help I will be very appreciative !
 

leeshor

Well-Known Member
It started with you installing Windows 10. You wouldn't have had the problem had you not started there. That is why GreyFox7 also included Windows 10 as a part of the solution. It might as well have been any current generation laptop. Not SP3 specific.
 
OP
R

rege0039

Member
OK, makes sense.

Was a bit nervous it would get less attention in this forum, I generally check the Surface Pro 3 one as that the machine I'm on.

Just want some help ! Done some serious searching and there's not much that can make it work again, other than installing Windows 10 all over again, which I'm not totally against but it is a lot of time !
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
That make sense

Is there a way to get the Windows 10 boot loader back without having to re-install everything ?

Can I do it from the start up screen ?

Not sure this 'started with a Windows 10 problem' as it is

1) On a Surface Pro 3

And

2) Started when I refreshed Windows 8.1

But hey-ho, as long as people read it and give some help I will be very appreciative !
You boot the W10 ISO and select Repair or Troubleshoot - I don't have the exact wording or screens...
 
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