14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently confirmed a new issue in Windows 10, explaining that some devices could just hit a fatal crash when attempting to run system restore after installing updates.
Specifically, the company says that users who clean-install Windows 10, create a system restore, install updates, and then attempt to restore the device could hit error 0xc000021a.
Eventually, the device no longer boots to the desktop, Microsoft says. The software giant goes on to confirm this is a known issue in Windows 10.
“During the system restore process, Windows temporarily stages the restoration of files that are in use. It then saves the information in the registry. When the computer restarts, it completes the staged operation,” it says in a recent advisory.
“In this situation, Windows restores the catalog files and stages the driver .sys files to be restored when the computer restarts. However, when the computer restarts, Windows loads the existing drivers before it restores the later versions of the drivers. Because the driver versions do not match the versions of the restored catalog files, the restart process stops.”
You can avoid this issue from the very beginning
While the troubleshooting steps to resolve this problem are available on the page linked above, Microsoft says users can also prevent this issue by simply running System Restore from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) and not from the Settings app.
To do this, users should go to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Advanced options > Restart now and then follow this path to reach system restore:
Troubleshoot > Advanced options > System restore