During the course of 2021 as several machines updated to Windows 10 Version 202H2 both 32 bit and 64 bit they demonstrated catastrophic failures that mimicked other problems. These included Windows displaying a BSOD. Message ‘BAD SYSTEM CONFIG INFO’ refering to log files at ‘c:\windows\system32\logfiles\srt\SrtTrail.txt’. Other messages would be typical of those displayed when hard drives are really failing. After running automatic repair and disk checking – they would then repeat the process. The machines would re-boot repeatedly. Attempts to use the self-repair options or Windows boot drives would lead to User accounts disappearing from the options and failure to find Restore points (if available). One machine would lock on the dark start-up screen many times, then would successfully boot and run for days as long as it wasn’t powered down. Another machine was running normally then Outlook 2019 ‘disappeared’ before the machine started cycling through the other symptoms.

Machines affected included: HP dc7900, HP dc8200.

The resolution to all this, so far, was Windows 21H1 either by fresh installation or using the Windows update assistant if the machine was capable of running it.