Bleachbit crippled my windows system.

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I've been using bleachbit for the first time. I must of checked all "System" checkboxes, of coruse i did come across the warning pop up boxes but they were cool with me as long as it doesnt damage the boot or system files, i proceeded with cleaning which took almost 20mins (thats normal). After the clean up i rebooted my system and suddenly i come across a boot error 0xc000000f boot section is inaccessible and boot\bcd, missing or corrupt , luckily i had the windows recovery disk tool. I used the recovery tool to try to fix the boot problem but no luck. In fact i tried every possible solution on the web but still no luck. Almost 2 days and i still cant fix the windows system. Whats the issue? I mean this shouldn't happen since bleachbit is safe!
Sorry but i'm not walking out of here until someone has a fixed solution to get my system back to normal, because bleachbit literally destoryed my system lol

The worse thing is that windows recovery repair tool doesn't even recognise windows installation no matter how many times I build the bootsec using the windows recovery commands.

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd
bootsect /nt60 all /force
I used other commands to rebuild the boot files can't exactly remember.

Startup Repair diagnosis and repair log
-----------------------------
Number of repair attempts: 1

Session details
-----------------------
System disk = \Device\Harddisk0
Windows directory = C:\Windows
AutoChk Run = 0
number of root causes = 1

Test performed:
--------------------------
Name: Check for updates
Results: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0ms

Test performed:
--------------------------
Name: System disk test
Results: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0ms

Test performed:
--------------------------
Name: Disk failure diagnosis
Results: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken =31ms

Test performed:
--------------------------
Name: Disk metadata test
Results: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 32ms

Test performed:
--------------------------
Name: Target OS test
Results: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 234ms

Test performed:
--------------------------
Name: Volume content check
Results: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0ms

Test performed:
--------------------------
Name: Boot manager diagnosis
Results: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0ms

Test performed:
--------------------------
Name: System boot log diagnosis
Results: Completed successfully. Error code = 0x0
Time taken = 0ms

Root cause found:
--------------------------
Boot manager failed to find OS loader.
Repair action: File repair
Result: Failed. Error code = 0x2
Time taken = 7161ms
Repair action: Boot configuration data store repair
Result: Failed. Error code = 0x2
Time taken = 0ms
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------

I'm on windows 7 64bit using the latest stable bleachbit version.

Cheers.

ROCKNROLLKID's picture

Did you happen to have "free disk space" checked?

Did you try to stop BleachBit during the cleaning?

Can you access safe mode at all and try doing a system restore?

____________________
Also known as Alex.

Moderator for BleachBit and a maintainer for Winapp2.

Check out my open-source group on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/opencommunity

Windows 10 x64 (switching to ReactOS in the future).

I'm actually completely locked out from windows, including any options from F8 so no I can't access the safe mode nor any other modes. I can only access my recovery disk repair.

Yes the option free space was checked and no I let bleachbit fully clean the system without and conflicts.

Cheers.

I forgot to mention, my system restore is disabled, which means I don't have any previous restore points because I have less disk space so I decided to disable it.

Before rebooting Windows did you run any other system utilities, system maintenance, performance clean up, or many any system changes (besides BleachBit)?

Have you tried searching the web for your exact error message? For example, here's an article The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible 0xc000000e

The latest stable release BleachBit version 1.12 does not not modify the master boot record or Windows startup files.

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Andrew, lead developer

No, i closed all other programs before the scan started. Like i mentioned i tried everything i could, i also tried that method. Ok so i found out that BleachBit removed my system32 folder, including every driver, sys files and many other directories. I am now in a deeper trouble, what can i do?

ROCKNROLLKID's picture

If you can't access your system, not even the advanced f8 options and Windows repair tool is failing, then the only option is really to reinstall Windows. If you have another drive, I can dual boot and then salvage data from the other drive onto that one. 20 minutes to complete free disk space operation is pretty short, so my assumption is maybe something interrupted the operation. It is usually best to only run that option in safe mode and only run it by itself to avoid anything getting in the way.

I am sorry that this has happened to you. This is the first we are hearing that BleachBit has done this and we try our best to avoid situations like this. I have recently filed a ticket to move the "free disk space" option to somewhere else where it won't be treated as just a normal cleaning rule. You seem like a smart person, so I assume you knew what you were doing anyways.

____________________
Also known as Alex.

Moderator for BleachBit and a maintainer for Winapp2.

Check out my open-source group on Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/opencommunity

Windows 10 x64 (switching to ReactOS in the future).

Unfortunately i won't reinstalling my windows because my drive is almost 7 years old, i have all my data on it. Reinstalling it means starting from the bottom and i cant bare to see that right now. I'd understand if my drive wasn't old or i never had the important files then yes i would do a fresh install. I need solutions as bleachbit removed system32 drivers and some important critical files that won't allow windows to boot up?
I didn't know bleachbit would so agressive on windows. I used the "free space" feature on ccleaner and many other softwares but never come across such ugly problem. I mean this is the first ever software damaging system files, this shouldn't of happened even despite using free space feature, if you know what i mean. I'm not happy with Bleachbit and i will not use it in the feature.

Cheers.

Will also mention my drive is only 256GB, free space shouldn't take more than 20mins.

Sorry this happened to you, but I am not sure how BleachBit could really do it. The "wipe free disk space" function BleachBit version 1.12 just makes a very large file and then deletes just that file, and this doesn't damage the system. BleachBit doesn't have any standard option to delete the system32 folder. Millions of users have downloaded BleachBit, and no one has mentioned it deleting the system32 folder.

Maybe there was a preexisting hardware fault with the drive, so please consider running SMART disk diagnostics and checking for bad sectors.

Of course you don't want to lose seven year's of documents. One option to attempt recovery is to copy your documents (maybe your user profile directory) to a USB drive. Then verify everything is there, and then you can reinstall the operating system. One way to copy the documents is to boot from a live operating system, such a a Linux live CD. If you want to be double sure, you can even clone the hard drive to a USB drive.

It is good practice to have a backup just in case anything happens. It could be hardware failure, fire, loss, or theft. I use an automated, encrypted backup service.

---
Andrew, lead developer

I can assure that, my harddrive is fine. Infact i made tests of my harddrive before this happened. I also tend to check my harddrive for faults. I can be sure bleachbit did do the damage, it was the only software opened when i closed all other programs before starting a scan, and as soon as the clean processes was completed, i rebooted. Boom, blue screen of death. I inserted my recovery disk, used the dir command to check if the critical files are im place, i then found all .dll and .sys files were missing from \windows\system32 directory. I wouldnt of made this thread if i'd fixed the problem then and there. Also few days and i still can't retrieve my files. Just to be sure i only have ccleaner and bleachbit for cleaning my system. ESET nod32 antivirus for viruses check. I do not have any other optimisation softwares, nor i ever have had them installed.

So it seems 2 years ago this was a known possible issue to which you at one point filed a ticket to have "free disk space" moved or otherwise separated from the general options because it is not just another "normal cleaning rule", is it? I have wasted 6 hours now in addition to the first 4 waiting for "Please wait. Wiping free disk space. About 0 minutes remaining." to do something other than just sit there. And now, it has commandeered all but 1.6Gb of a 250Gb machine that wasn't half full when I started. The first 4 hours was nonsense, these last 6 hours trying to get some support from either BleachBit, the fine runaround at GitHub or the youtuber TechGumbo who recommended this program as his #1 best CCleaner alternative have been downright infuriating.