It happens.  Updates are applied that somehow go wrong and fry the operating system.  First line of defense is to use a system restore.  But wait, it gets better…

After a system restore the operating system won’t boot.  Now you’re digging through your recovery option CD’s trying to find a way to fix the operating system so it will boot.  You get your Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset booted, attempt another system restore.  It fails.  You realize that the OS has deeper issues so you start digging and come up with running SFC /SCANNOW (hopefully an offline variation) and it fails with a message about being unable to run because “There is a system repair pending”.

I’ve come across this many times and until now have never found a way around it.  You simply cannot get there from here.  No Microsoft recovery tools will run until this pending system repair is dealt with, but you can’t deal with it because you can’t boot!

Well, there IS an answer:

dism.exe /image:C:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions

From a command line interface from your Windows install disk or the MS DaRT disk I referenced above, this command and a reboot will clear the pending system repair allowing you to move forward.

Good luck!