Installing Wrong Driver Caused WDF

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theoldfarter

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#238115 3-Jul-2018 20:31

I was having trouble with my Lenovo Legion Y520 laptop Elan touchpad. It would activate anything the cursor traveled over. Long story short: Tried various drivers from the Lenovo website but to no avail. I googled the problem and came across some Elan drivers on Softpedia site (I think). Install the latest driver, ignored the warning about it may not work (something like that) and restarted. I know I was foolish. I am even more foolish in that I had installed Macrium Reflect 2 days ago but had not yet made an image.

I am stuck in a boot loop with the WDF_VIOLATION message. This is what I have done, to no avail:

Can't boot into safe mode, the BSOD happens before getting to it.

System Restore won't work as it gives me an error (0x80070003).

Booted with the Macrium Rescue USB stick and tried to repair the boot menu. It says it has deleted the old and made the new but still get the BSOD

Downloaded Kyhi’s Rescue Disk and formatted a USB stick as FAT32 and copied the .iso on to it.
Tried booting with it but no go. I get a message that there is no USB boot on the laptop.
I go into the BIOS only to find that the USB boot option has gone. It was there before as changing the boot order to the USB, was one of the first things I did with this laptop when I bought it. There is no optical drive in this laptop.

With no USB stick connected, I can get to the Recovery options where I can choose to Refresh windows without touching files, etc, and I can also get to choose to install from the Lenovo Recovery partition. I assume they would work or maybe not and get back to the BSOD loop.

Is there any way I can get to uninstall that driver without going down the Refresh/ Restore option?

I can also get to the Command Prompt. Is there a way to use that to delete the Elan driver?

I assume that Windows boots from the system32 folder and I also assume that the Elan Touchpad Driver installed a file, or files in there, causing the WDF_VIOLATION.
If I can identify the files that the driver installed & delete them, then I hope I can boot into Windows again

Any advice?

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#2048557 3-Jul-2018 20:45

Sorry, no help here but I'd say never install drivers that come from third party sites such as softpedia or anything else that is not the manufacturer or OEM.

In your case I think the problem was not the driver - perhaps the trackpad had some dirty or needed some settings change.

Again, sorry for not helping with the problem on hand.

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yitz

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#2048563 3-Jul-2018 21:07

Can you disable the touchpad in the BIOS?

gzt

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#2048564 3-Jul-2018 21:09

Uninstall Offline Windows OS Drivers with Dism Command

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/617868/uninstall-offline-windows-os-drivers-with-dism-command/

gzt

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#2048566 3-Jul-2018 21:12

yitz: Can you disable the touchpad in the BIOS?

It may be an internal usb device and not separate. If that's the case, disabling all usb could work. Do IBM still stick ps2 on everything? ; ).

Ah it's probably touch screen.. could work..

theoldfarter

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#2048665 3-Jul-2018 23:21

@yitz
No option in BIOS to disable touchpad.

@gzt
No option to disable USB in BIOS.
Not a touch screen.

Will go look at your link re: Dism Command.

Thanks for replying guys.

yitz

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#2048666 3-Jul-2018 23:36

Does anyone know if the "Last Known Good Configuration" F8 option still exists nowadays? That should restore the previous snapshot of the registry and device driver setup, this is separate from System Restore (which uses Shadow Copy).

I would try that before DISM.

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theoldfarter

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#2048669 3-Jul-2018 23:55

I am interested in peoples views on that. I do remember reading something about it years ago.

I am looking through the Driver List the DSIM bought up. I will do nothing tonight as I am rather tired and off to bed in a few minutes.

The Beeping Computer page says something I don't quite understand. It is this at the bottom of the page:

"Also replace the oem1.inf driver name with driver name of the driver you want to uninstall."

Does the author mean that one replaces the oem1.inf (or other #) with the actual name of the driver or to replace oem1.inf with the .inf number that corresponds to the driver one wants to delete?

I am wondering if I should just try to do a Refresh install/repair where Windows is supposed to reinstall itself without touching my files, etc.

This laptop has the OS on an SSD and has a second mechanical HDD. All my Data is on the separate HDD, so I won't lose anything important.

yitz

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#2048673 4-Jul-2018 00:46

Yeah... it looks like "Last Known Good Configuration" might be gone by default in the new blue Startup Options screen, you might be able to bring back the old black F8 Advanced Boot Options menu by following these instructions:

https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-restore-the-last-known-good-configuration-feature-in-windows-8-1/

As for the *.inf file it wont be one of the oem##.inf ones as they are all Intel drivers your touchpad won't be Intel for vendor.

Quick google suggests for ELAN it is "ETD.inf", you might want to do a Get-DriverInfo on that file name to confirm if related. ETD.inf may be safer to remove as it isn't a core driver I don't have it on my system that doesn't have a touchpad.

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#2048686 4-Jul-2018 07:12

3 options -

choose to install from the Lenovo Recovery partition

physically disconnect your touchpad/touchscreen (may or may not help)

take out hard drive, clone it, try to remove the driver from hard drive - should work

3B -

take out hard drive, get your data, put it back in, choose to install from the Lenovo Recovery partition

gzt

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#2049052 4-Jul-2018 14:49

Going the disassemble way probably see a USB connection for the tocuh pad.

gzt

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#2049053 4-Jul-2018 14:49

safe mode boot?

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theoldfarter

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#2049062 4-Jul-2018 15:00

The laptop is 3 months old and I have no wish to void the warranty by opening it up if I have other options yet to do.

Can't get into Safe Mode as the BSOD happens before it. The option to Refresh Windows is not there in the Recovery Environment. I downloaded the Windows Creation Tool and it booted from a USB port. The only option available to me from it is to do a completely fresh install of Windows. I am not going to do that as I will lose the Lenovo stuff I want to keep. I will now try the Lenovo Recovery Partition. The reason I never tried that first is that it came with Windows Home edition and I upgraded to the Pro.

The Recovery will take me back to the Home edition. Oh well, looks like I will have to go through the process of upgrading again. Seeing it is the same laptop, I hope it will activate the Pro. If not, a long phone call with Microsoft will be needed. :)

gzt

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#2049066 4-Jul-2018 15:05

Anyway it will be interesting to see if your track pad works in the default image, if not it is a warranty issue anyway at three months.

theoldfarter

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#2049077 4-Jul-2018 15:34

True. If I ever get it going, I will contact Lenovo about its weird behavior. Should have done that first but I was rather 'gun-shy' as this Lenovo was a replacement to a similar spec HP that had all it's USB ports stop working after 3 months. It went to the shop for repair and the repair failed after 18 days. Rejected the Hp and bought this Lenovo. I was without the HP for 3 weeks as they had to order a USB Controller board from overseas. Oh, Joy.

Anyway, just tried the Lenovo Recovery button and the Recovery option it gives just takes me into the screen I was in in the Windows Recovery Environment, which does not include recovering from the Lenovo Recovery Partition.

I am having A Bad Hair Day :(

I will have to try the reinstall of Windows from the Media Creation Tool and hope that it will complete. If it does, there will not be any Lenovo apps. I suppose I can download them Or, once back into Windows, try the Lenovo Recovery Partition again.

If not, looks like the Lenovo will need to go to the shop for reimaging. That is, if the repair shops in Wellington can do that. If not, back to Lenovo for them to do it.

Either way sounds expensive for me.

theoldfarter

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#2049171 4-Jul-2018 17:55

Was able to install Windows through the Creation Tool. Now, when I choose the Lenovo Recovery, I can get into it. Recovered from that partition and am back to Out Of Box experience. Phew.

Now, before I connect to the Internet, I must make sure that the System Restore works and fix it if it doesn't.

In a couple of days, I will contact Lenovo to see what can be done to get back the USB boot option in the BIOS.

Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.

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