Windows update failed

[glen_at_home]

HP Stream 14" was delivered with Windows 8.1 but has been running Windows 10 64-bit for several years.

The netbook ran out of disk space (no surprise), which caused Windows 10 updates to fail. The version of Windows 10 became old, and in my view vulnerable, so I freed up disk space to resume Microsoft's auto-updates. Lack of software is not a bother as the device is mostly used as a thin client (it was actually very good in that role).

Microsoft's auto-updater completed some older updates before installing the Windows 10 feature update (version 1909?). That is when Windows boot process became stuck in an infinite loop. The error message displayed is "Undoing changes made to you computer..." It then crashes, reboots, and repeats the message.

I tried F11 Recovery, reluctantly as I do not want to return Windows 8.1, and that leads to a blue screen displaying error "A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed. Error code 0x000225".

Is it time to conclude that the HP Stream is not compatible with Microsoft Windows?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

At this point, you may want to try clean installing W10 by creating a bootable USB installation drive using the Microsoft media creation tool.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

When you get to the part where it asks 'Where do you want to install Windows,' delete every partition on the hard drive leaving just one partition of unallocated space.  Click Next, and W10 should install.

If you are asked to enter a product key during the installation process, select the 'I don't have a product key' option and W10 will install and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

After W10 has completed installing, you can install the drivers and available software from your notebook's support page.