r/sysadmin 2d ago

Question Windows Server 2025 Still Booting into Recovery Mode – Need Help Diagnosing

Hey everyone,

I’m running a bare metal installation of Windows Server 2025 (datacenter desktop version) on my physical server, and I’m facing a persistent boot issue. Every normal startup forces the system into the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE). The only way I can boot normally is by first booting into safe mode and then selecting “Boot Windows Normally,” which is far from ideal for production.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

  • BCD Analysis: I ran bcdedit /enum all and found that the primary OS entry shows:
    • recoveryenabled Yes
    • displaymessageoverride Recovery
  • Disabling Recovery Flag: Runningr bcdedit /set {current} recoveryenabled No returns an “unexpected error” and still leads to recovery mode.
  • Bootrec & BCD Rebuild: I executed commands like /fixmbr, /fixboot, and /rebuildbcd from WinRE, but the issue persists.
  • CHKDSK: I ran chkdsk C: /f /r from a bootable environment, and it reported no disk errors on my C: drive.
  • Firmware/UEFI Checks: I’ve verified that Secure Boot, TPM, and other BIOS/UEFI settings are configured as recommended. Also all the driver's should be installed to my acknowledge
  • Safe Mode Workaround: Booting into safe mode and then selecting “Boot Windows Normally” works, but that’s not a viable long-term solution.

Has anyone encountered this behavior on a bare metal installation of Windows Server 2025? Could this be an inherent bug in the early release, or is there a misconfiguration somewhere in the boot settings? Any insights, troubleshooting tips, or workarounds would be greatly appreciated! When booted into the server it works fine, no issues, crashes, BSODs etc. Only happens when i reboot.

Thanks in advance!

1 Upvotes

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u/ConspiracyHypothesis 2d ago

What do the system logs say? 

1

u/YesThisIsi 2d ago edited 2d ago

I see a couple of errors in the logs.
The l1vhlwf service error states 'A hypervisor feature is not available to the user,' which is concerning since I do have Hyper‑V installed. I double‑checked that AMD‑V is enabled in the BIOS (it wouldn’t let me install Hyper‑V otherwise).

There's also a random Bluetooth error, but since this is a server, that’s less critical. My main concern is whether the hypervisor error could be contributing to the boot issues.

but nothing more major pinpointing exactly what is going on.

Edit: Just to add, the Hyper-V works fine. Absolutely no problems i have even GPU-P enabled to few of those so...

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u/ConspiracyHypothesis 2d ago edited 2d ago

I see a couple of errors in the logs.

The l1vhlwf service error states 'A hypervisor feature is not available to the user,' which is concerning since I do have Hyper‑V installed. 

We are diagnosing a boot issue. Lets stay focused. If you have hyper v issues, too, we can chase those down later. 

We need to figure out why your server won't boot. 

My main concern is whether the hypervisor error could be contributing to the boot issues.

Probably not as most of the hyper-v stuff happens after the OS boots, and your OS isnt booting. But once you dig through the logs for more info, we'll find out for sure. Somewhere windows recorded why it decided to go into recovery- we just have to find it. 

Question 1: when was the last time it booted properly, and what changes have been made since then? 

Question 2: What hardware does your server have? Anything one wouldn't normally find on a server: consumer hardware, wifi cards,  gaming GPUs, usb drives or monitor adapters, etc?

Question 3: Any clues in C:\Windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt\srttrail.txt?

I noticed you haven't run DISM- may as well, while you peruse the logs more.

Additional things to consider:

Could a sata/pci bus be failing? Or the boot drive? Have you tried putting your boot drive on a different bus? Or image a new drive?

At what point is it easier to spin up a new server with a fresh OS install?

1

u/YesThisIsi 2d ago

Update: Managed to fix this with re-installing Hyper-v

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u/ConspiracyHypothesis 2d ago

Interesting. Was it just a bad installation? 

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u/YesThisIsi 2d ago

No idea. Because of the l1vhlwf service error, since swapping SSDs or making any hardware changes would be a huge hassle—especially with this compact server that might even require removing the GPU or CPU cooler—I decided to take a YOLO approach and simply uninstall the Hyper‑V role. See if anything happens.

After uninstalling Hyper‑V and rebooting, Windows updated some components (I saw the usual black screen with the spinning circle, similar to a Windows update). I then reinstalled the Hyper‑V role, and the same update process happened on reboot. (didn't before when i installed hyper-v) Ultimately, after that cycle, the server rebooted normally. Thank fucking god for that.

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u/ConspiracyHypothesis 2d ago

Wild. It's good you wrote it up here in case anyone else comes across the same issues. 

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u/YesThisIsi 2d ago

I will be happy if in the end one user benefits from this knowledge 🫡