Windows 10 fails to upgrade? Here is how to fix it.

There are many possible reasons for Widows 10 upgrade to fail. Whether you are upgrading from an older version of Windows, such as Windows 7 or Windows 8, or from a previous build of Windows 10 itself, if the upgrade is failing, the first things to check are the obvious ones: search the web for the error message displayed and see what others might have done about it, check your C: drive for errors, remove any old software that might be incompatible with Windows 10, etc.

If you tried such things, but Windows 10 still fails to upgrade without giving an obvious explanation, for example, if the upgrade reaches a certain percentage point and then stalls there for hours, and when you try the upgrade again, it stalls again, perhaps at a different percentage point, one of the possibilities is that the BCD on your computer is corrupted, and that's stopping Windows 10 from upgrading properly.

What is BCD, you might be wondering? It stands for Boot Configuration Data  , and it's a set of files that Windows is using internally when it starts your computer. It is used by Windows upgrade procedure, too, and if something is wrong with it, Windows upgrade fails. This article explains how to repair the BCD.

However, first things first:

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If you agree with the above, here are the instructions:

1. Boot in the Safe mode with Command Prompt

First, reboot the computer in the safe mode with command prompt. The procedure depends on the version of Windows that you already have. If you have trouble rebooting your computer in the safe mode, another option is to boot the computer from Windows 10 DVD (if you have it, of course), and choose Repair your computer option:

On the next screen, choose Troubleshooting, and then finally choose the Command prompt option:

2. Rebuild the BCD

Now we are ready to rebuild the BCD. Type the following command in the command prompt:

bootrec.exe /RebuildBCD

Windows should start searching for the existing installations of Windows you might have on your hard drives. If it reports that 0 installations are found, try the following two commands, one after another:

bcdedit /CreateStore BCD
bcdedit /Import BCD

Now try the bootrec.exe /RebuildBCD command again. This time, Windows should find its existing installation and ask you to add it to the BCD information, reply Y for Yes:

Now close the Command prompt, restart the computer as usual, and try to upgrade to Windows 10 again. Chances are, the upgrade will now succeed! It not, then sorry, the problem on your computer was not a corrupted BCD, something else.

Good luck!

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