The causes of the error are system-level settings’ misconfiguration and process malfunctioning, but not limited to them. And usually, this error leaves behind a choppy cursor motion, unresponsive taskbar, icons, or sometimes even a totally white or black desktop screen. And at its worst, the error is capable of causing BSOD as well. But in any case, this article will guide you in resolving the Unknown hard error to salvage your PC.
What causes an Unknown hard error on Windows?
Solve Unknown hard errors on Windows
First of all, let’s start off by restarting the PC. This will help in halting any unnecessary process, as it can be a potential cause of the error. But, if the issue persists upon booting as well, you will have to follow the fixes listed below:
Corrupt System FilesFaulty Application CodeChanges in RegistryFailing Hard DriveDisabled Windows Error Reporting ServiceBuggy Windows Update
Perform Clean Boot
Some erroneous services running in your background can start up even after booting. This causes the Unknown hard error to prompt each time you open your computer. You can perform a clean boot to check if it is the situation you are going through. Follow the steps mentioned below to perform a clean boot: Now, to figure out which service is causing a problem, you can enable services one by one. Check and disable the service which causes the error to prompt upon enabling. You can also disable apps from automatic startup to rectify the issue.
Enable Windows Error Reporting Service
An unknown hard error can arise if Windows Error Reporting Service is disabled. If any application closes peculiarly or causes an error to any OS-related process, CLR(Common Language Run-time) will try to trigger the WER service, which should log and report the causes of the error to the kernel. But, if the service is inactive, CLR reports and declares the Unknown hard error prompt. To avoid such a scenario on your PC, you will have to set the WER service to manual startup type by following: The application you’re using may disable or hinder starting the WER service each time you open it. Consider contacting the application developer to fix such bugs.
Run SFC and DISM
As mentioned above, corruption of system files or processes, sihost.exe, ctmon.exe, and explorer.exe majorly, are also known causes of the Unknown hard error. And since they are Windows files, mild damages can be fixed using in-built commands. SFC(System File Checker) and DISM(Deployment Image Servicing and Management) are the commands we’ll be using to fix or replace the damaged Windows system and Image files. Follow the steps given below to run them: In some circumstances, you won’t be able to access Command Prompt as the desktop becomes unresponsive. So, you will have to run it through the Task Manager. To do so, follow: Moreover, the error is also supposed to create booting issues and BSOD at times. To continue troubleshooting the system files and disk in such instances, you will have to access WindowsRE. But first, you will have to find the boot partition in order to run these commands. To find the boot partition, Now, once you know your boot drive, use these commands:
dism /image:C:\ /cleanup-image /restorehealthsfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=C:\windows
Replace C: with the boot partition of your computer. Enter the osdevice letter in the dism command. Then, change the drive letter in the sfc’s bootdir and osdevice’s for windir. You can also initiate Startup repair for other booting issues.
Run CHKDSK
Just like these system troubleshooter commands, Windows also has got a built-in command for fixing disk errors. The chkdsk command would scan for bad sectors and damaged partitions within your hard drive to eventually fix them. You will have to go through these steps to resolve the logical errors of the drive:
Undo Registry Changes
Massive changes in the registry mean there are chances that the Windows low-level system configurations are affected. Any configurations causing damage to necessary OS-level processes might sum up as the Unknown hard error. Changes in the registry can occur manually(tweaking the registry without being aware of it) or automatically(if you have given admin permissions to any application during installation). Some malware can also cause shifts in registry values. Thus, you should always scan your PC for such malware and viruses. These steps will help you scan your computer: But, for other unknown changes, you will have to restore or reset your registry. If you have created a backup of your registry, then a backup file can be imported to restore the registry. Or you can perform a system restore. But for irreversible changes in the registry, you won’t be left with more options than System Reset.
Update Windows
Some cumulative updates of Windows have been reported to bring bugs that cause this unknown hard error. These bugs are tried to fix with subsequent updates from Microsoft. If that’s something you’re going through, you will have to scan for new updates and install them in order to solve the error. Follow the steps mentioned below to do so:
Revert Updates
In case you didn’t find any further Windows updates, you can try uninstalling the latest updates that brought bugs. Then, you can wait till Microsoft pushes a fresh batch of cumulative updates to fix the error. Follow the steps given below to uninstall Windows updates:
Restore / Reset System
Or, you can perform a system restore if you have created a restore point. It will uninstall all the updates done after that point and will restore the registry of that point. But as pointed out earlier, if you haven’t set up a restore point, you will have to reset your computer to default factory settings from the WindowsRE.
