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Windows 10 Defender Offline stuck in infinite restart loop

Hi there,

I just ran Windows 10 Defender Offline on my workstation. The computer restarted and ran the Windows Defender Offline scan and restart the computer when completed. Then the computer boot into Windows Defender Offline in an infinite loop, completing the scan, then restarts all over again.

I do not have any restore points or images of my system and I would like to avoid formatting the partition to fix the problem. 

I successfully entered the command line from from the install usb stick, but I do not have any idea what to do to remove the defender offline stuff. The boot fix feature did nothing for me.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Best regard,

Lars Erik

[Moved from Windows 10]

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Hi,

I had exactly the same problem today, i have also repair the infinite restart loop with command line but the Workstation always boot on defender offline. I have tried bootrec et bcdedit commands but nothing is working !

Needs help please !

Best regards,

Yohann

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Now i have the following message :

Recovery

Your PC/device needs to be repaired

Echec du chargement du système d'exploitation, car un pilote système critique est manquant ou contient des erreurs (in french)

File : \WINDOWS\System32\drivers\ACPI.sys

Error code: 0xc000007b

Choose one of the options below to adress this problem.

Press Esc for recovery

Press Enter to try again

Press F8 for startup settings

I have found this post but no solution : http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-update/error-code-windowssystem32driveracpisys-after/db4cc352-b4cb-4f9e-84f3-33002b2c8623

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Hi,

How are you trying to run Windows Defender offline?

For more information regarding Windows Defender offline, you may refer to this link.

If you have done the same thing, we suggest you to run System File Checker and DISM to know what's causing the issue.

Let us know how it goes.

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I could not find any errors on the disk or any sort of error code/messages:

I ended up booting the computer using a usb stick in UEFI-mode (not USB-mode).

Then I clicked: Continue. Exit and continue to Windows 10.

The computer suddenly boot into Windows....problem solved....!!!

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Lars,

I am having the same problem, but not sure how to "use a USB stick in UEFI-Mode." Can you help me with some step-by-step instruction? I am more of a MAC person. Thanks in advance.

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I never was able to provoke this situation on my test machines. But from what I was able to track it down, it seems that a damaged boot environment or a locked hard disk is the root cause. See:  Windows 10: Defender Offline Scan boot loop – Part 2
Blogs: http://www.borncity.com/blog /(Ger) - and - http://borncity.com/win/ (EN)

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Hi, I hit the same bug and was able to fix my issue by manually recreating and populating the /boot folder.

The TLDR of my resolution:

use diskpart to set partition with \boot folder as active

populate BCD with necessary entries.

This post was definitely helpful:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-start/issue-with-updating-bcdboot-configuration-data-in/65acca84-e87b-4bb5-8bc7-cc7e222730c3?rtAction=1486291237839&lc=1033

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Windows seems to have fixed the issue with an update. The defender offline button is no longer grayed out, and windoes boots normally. I never had a boot loop, just defender offline would run insted of the recovery consol  (if there was some other problem with booting). Thanks. 

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Recently I contacted Microsoft about the boot loop after running windows defender.  The team is in India and unfortunately they currently don't have windows 10 version 1607 with windows defender offline.  So they are not yet able to fix the boot loop problems with windows defender.   They only have the windows 10 version or build 1511.

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Hi,

We will appreciate any feedback that you can provide regarding with Windows update. We suggest that you post this at Windows Feedback Hub.

Feel free to post back should you have further concerns.

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Last updated October 29, 2023 Views 21,317 Applies to: