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Microsoft's Meltdown and Spectre Patch Is Bricking Some AMD PCs (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson writes: As if the Meltdown and Spectre bug affecting millions of processors was not bad enough, the patches designed to mitigate the problems are introducing issues of their own. Perhaps the most well-known effect is a much-publicized performance hit, but some users are reporting that Microsoft's emergency patch is bricking their computers. We've already seen compatibility issues with some antivirus tools, and now some AMD users are reporting that the KB4056892 patch is rendering their computer unusable. A further issue -- error 0x800f0845 -- means that it is not possible to perform a rollback.
'bricked' means the hardware is messed up, e.g. you can't reinstall an OS.
I've got some old Athlon boards around I was using until last year. They're great for HTPC if you don't mind a bit of noise from the fan. They make good gaming rigs for e-sports style games if you pair them with something like a 1050 or an RX460. The boards came out after solid state caps were a thing so they last forever.
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Why does error 0x800f0845 mean rollback is impossible?
Error 800f0845 (and similar error detail codes) generally means the post-reboot stage of the auto-installer is fubar'd and since this update apparently didn't bother to create a restore point, then you can't easily rollback unless you happened create a restore point before the auto-installer tried to install this update.
About the only way around these types of errors is to wait until M$FT issues a new windows update troubleshooter which you will probably need to run in safe mode (which also might have to be manually downloaded on another computer depending on how big a mess they made with this original hot fix). Worst case it might involve an in-place upgrade (basically installing windows on top of itself).
That doesn't make any sense. AMD is not affected by the bug, so how would Microsoft "fix it"? It is processor specific. Meltdown is INTEL ONLY. But nice spin!
The child who wrote the "article" doesn't understand anything. These aren't bricked, as they are fixable with a reinstall.
Everyone keeps backups like they are supposed to, right?
The problem here is that you can't initiate safe mode from a cold boot. Both of those methods require you to have a somewhat working OS to start with. If your Windows 10 crashes dead and you turn it off, there is no way to force it into safe mode during startup like you could with previous versions. This is a significant problem for techs who repair systems that have been unplugged to be delivered to a central location. Yes, you can still stick in a Windows 10 bootable disk and repair from there but you shouldn't have to.
Kids these days don't even know what it means to brick a device.
Here's a hint: A bricked device might as well be a brick. It is unusable for its original purpose, forever.
This incident is nothing more than a fubared update patch. The device (computer) can easily be made useful again by reinstalling the OS, or even waiting for Microsoft to issue a fix. It is certainly not bricked in any sense. Although you might be tempted to throw a brick at it.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
I just dealt with this on a computer with an AMD processor, including the 0x800f0845 error.
Safe mode would not boot.
After enough failed attempts, it offered me the "repair your computer" option.
Two system restores - the most recent and the oldest, failed with the 0x800f0845 errror.
After that, however, a "startup repair" fixed it.
I am writing this on the computer in question.
I have no idea if this will work on all AMD equipped computers, but it certainly worked on this one.