Hey, my PC has been running fine for 4 years, one day I updated VLC player, restarted my PC and I haven't been able to get to my desktop in over 5 days.
Here's what happens and what I've tried:
I start the PC, it shows the BIOS splash screen like normal, then shows the windows 8 logo like normal, but then underneath the logo appears that it's diagnosing then attempting a repair, then it will restart, do the same again but this time go to the new windows 8 BSOD. Saying that the error was "process1_initialization_failed".
It will gather information to try to repair the PC, when it reaches 100% it restarts, goes through the same process, only to this time take me to a screen offering me to restart again or go to advanced options.
In these options are the choices continue to Windows 8, troubleshoot or turn off.
Continue just makes it crash and restart the whole process again.
In trouble shooting there is refresh and reset, both of which ask for a windows instillation or recovery disk. Which I don't have. I did purchase windows 8.1 legally, but I downloaded it so didn't get any install disks. I torrented windows 7, put the iso file on a dvd and tried to use that but it said it was unusable media.
I tried system restore, there were 3, the first was by avast, which ended up saying failed to extract, and the file was damaged or deleted in the process, the second was automatic, upon which I got the same result, and the third was automatic too, upon which I got something saying it had failed but run "chkdsk /r" and a bunch of error messages that said
"the instruction 0xa0cc425 referenced memory at 0xfce80000. The memory could not be read. Click OK to terminate the program. "
Clicking okay led to the same message with the same first code but instead of the second code had:
0xfc540000
0x0761f05c
0xfc330000
0xfc540000
0xfc9a0000
0xfc750000
On receiving that last error message the computer froze, I could not click okay and had to force reboot by holding down the power button.
System image said there was no image to use.
Start up repair is what it tries to do everytime anyway and fails.
There is a section for start up settings in which I tried safe mode but it the exact same thing happened.
I googled the error code process1_initialization_failed, and there I saw a lot of problems people had on Windows 7 and not any on Windows 8.1 saying similar things to me, and then they fixed it by deleting a bootcat.Cache file in system 32 through the command prompt option in the advanced settings, I tried that, and can get into the codeintegrity folder, but when I type del bootcat.Cache it says that it doesn't exist.
I'm at my wits end! Any help at all is greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read and help me!
Here's what happens and what I've tried:
I start the PC, it shows the BIOS splash screen like normal, then shows the windows 8 logo like normal, but then underneath the logo appears that it's diagnosing then attempting a repair, then it will restart, do the same again but this time go to the new windows 8 BSOD. Saying that the error was "process1_initialization_failed".
It will gather information to try to repair the PC, when it reaches 100% it restarts, goes through the same process, only to this time take me to a screen offering me to restart again or go to advanced options.
In these options are the choices continue to Windows 8, troubleshoot or turn off.
Continue just makes it crash and restart the whole process again.
In trouble shooting there is refresh and reset, both of which ask for a windows instillation or recovery disk. Which I don't have. I did purchase windows 8.1 legally, but I downloaded it so didn't get any install disks. I torrented windows 7, put the iso file on a dvd and tried to use that but it said it was unusable media.
I tried system restore, there were 3, the first was by avast, which ended up saying failed to extract, and the file was damaged or deleted in the process, the second was automatic, upon which I got the same result, and the third was automatic too, upon which I got something saying it had failed but run "chkdsk /r" and a bunch of error messages that said
"the instruction 0xa0cc425 referenced memory at 0xfce80000. The memory could not be read. Click OK to terminate the program. "
Clicking okay led to the same message with the same first code but instead of the second code had:
0xfc540000
0x0761f05c
0xfc330000
0xfc540000
0xfc9a0000
0xfc750000
On receiving that last error message the computer froze, I could not click okay and had to force reboot by holding down the power button.
System image said there was no image to use.
Start up repair is what it tries to do everytime anyway and fails.
There is a section for start up settings in which I tried safe mode but it the exact same thing happened.
I googled the error code process1_initialization_failed, and there I saw a lot of problems people had on Windows 7 and not any on Windows 8.1 saying similar things to me, and then they fixed it by deleting a bootcat.Cache file in system 32 through the command prompt option in the advanced settings, I tried that, and can get into the codeintegrity folder, but when I type del bootcat.Cache it says that it doesn't exist.
I'm at my wits end! Any help at all is greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read and help me!