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Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

  • You put a Windows 8-based computer to sleep mode or hybrid sleep mode.

  • Power to the computer is lost when the computer is asleep.

  • You try to start the computer.

In this scenario, the computer freezes at startup and a black screen is displayed.

Cause

This issue occurs because the $Secure file becomes corrupted. When the system tries to recover the corrupted $Secure file, the default permissions are set across all files on the system. However, the default permissions are insufficient to enable the remote procedure call (RPC) endpoint mapper service to start. Because the RPC is important to the operation of Windows, the system freezes when the RPC endpoint mapper service does not start.

Note The $Secure file is an NTFS internal metadata file that contains security permissions for the whole volume. The $Secure file can become corrupted if one of the lost write operations is related to writing permissions.

In Windows 8, some in-progress write operations are flushed to the disk incorrectly when the computer enters hybrid sleep mode. Data corruption in the file system or pagefile occurs when power to the system is lost. Depending on the progress of write operations, random data corruption may occur across the disk. 

Note This behavior is a regression in Windows 8 and does not occur in hybrid sleep scenarios on Windows 7. 

Resolution

Update information 

Three separate fixes are in progress to prevent this issue on Windows 8. The fixes are delivered on Windows Update in the June 2013 and July 2013 update rollup releases. 

To install the June 2013 update rollup, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

2845533 Windows RT, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2012 update rollup: June 2013 To install the July 2013 update rollup, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

2855336 Windows RT, Windows 8, and Windows Server 2012 update rollup: July 2013

More information about the updates

The mitigation fixes that are included in the June 2013 update rollup address the following two issues. The fixes can also be installed on Windows Server 2012 and Windows RT. These updates improve the ability of system to recover data from any data corruption scenario related to the $Secure file.

  • These updates resolves an issue in which the Task Scheduler repeatedly sets permissions on files that causes the $Secure file to grow very large.

  • Updates CHKDSK to recover the $Secure file more efficiently when the $Secure file becomes corrupted.

The third update that is scheduled to be released in July 2013 will address the cause of the following issue:

Resolves an issue in which some write operations are lost if power is lost during hybrid sleep mode. This fix prevents lost operations and prevents data corruption.

References

For more information about software update terminology, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

824684 Description of the standard terminology that is used to describe Microsoft software updates

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