BTW last night I had a sata dvd-rom go up in smoke too and that was after upgrading hardware ( new power supply, mb, cpu, ram, cables, case).  Since everything was wired correctly and properly grounded, I think this coincidence of multiple sata devices blowing up may be a case of source voltage spikes (as in this apartment I'm in has bad power). GRRRRRRRRR. Use a power conditioner!
 
 

I'm starting to think my "good luck" with SONAR and other software may have something to do with my religious use of uninterruptible power supplies. I first became aware of this with the ADAT. Mine worked perfectly and a friend of mine was always having problems. When he bought an uninterruptible power supply his ADAT started working perfectly. Hmmm...
 
Many computer power supplies are rated marginally when you load up your machine with internal drives and RAM. Always use a power supply with more capacity than you think you'll need.

I have had rather good 'Sonar Luck' as well, over the years, and while I do not currently use a UPS (I used to when living in Canada, but I've found the power system here in Germany *much* more stable - basically we virtually never lose power, even when big storms pass through) I did fork out extra for a very robust, significantly over-rated power supply in this machine and it has served me remarkably well over the years (I think I built it in 2008, and several OS changes later it's still trucking along nicely). So who knows?

Just wanted to post a follow up here, now that I've had some rest from a weeks worth of insane studio computer hell, maybe it will help others:
 
Yes. For sure it looks like my power issues are source related. Found out I was getting bad spikes. Destroyed the following: Corsair ax860 ps, 1 tb mushkin ssd, 1 dvd-rom, 1 tb wd green drive, 1 tb wd black drive. This included all internal backups (my entire samples library ~250gb, music installer backups, and in process projects).  Luckily, I still have my external drive backups, but they still put me back about 6 months and don't contain stuff like omnisphere iso's (which they charge to re-download) or any of my recent work.
 
 
Now that I'm done feeling sad, I'm going to turn this **** into gold.
 
So I spent all day yesterday installing everything on a fresh system (New Asus mb, processor, ram, ssd, corsair ps, cables, case, power conditioner) and started with windows 10 pro 64 bit iso install.
 
After 18 hours getting everything almost the entire studio reinstalled. Windows 10 crashes upon sign in with a "CRITICAL_PROCESS_ERROR".  Safe mode will not boot either and nobody seems to know a fix.
 
So, I started again last night and reformatted and reinstalled again. After a few hours setting up everything not studio related I have it working well. Windows is booting fine and I'm going to back up as soon as I have the large sonar install done.
 
Then...
 
During install Sonar gives a ton of .net c++ errors. WTF am I doing wrong here.
 
PS - Windows 10 update also fails.
 
So should I go to Windows 7 now?
 
 
 
 

I like W10 for the most part, it is a solid OS.
 
The part I don't like are the UI changes, and it has nothing to do with aesthetics, but its practicality. I use a 40" 4K monitor and when I RDP into work, I tend to end up with a large number of open windows all over the place (there is no point in maximizing windows on a 40" monitor). Compared to W7, overlapping windows on W8/10 became a PITA due the flat theme making it hard to tell where one UI element ends and another starts. Things like the hit area for the sizing cursor is now outside the actual window, so picking the correct window edge to resize becomes a little game all in itself. And many times I've closed the wrong window because it wasn't clear which title bar belonged to the one I actually wanted to close. So now I need to take my focus off of my work and apply extra effort to trace flat lines to make sure I hit the right button. These might sound like small things, but over a day's worth of time, it adds up.
 
I know my use case isn't that common but I think the loss of UI definition is a step backwards. Our brains are very powerful in quickly identifying unique objects based on depth cues (look how easy it is to identify the densely packed controls in SONAR - make them all flat and it will become hard to use). The previous UI designers knew this and used it to great effect. But we lost all depth cues, making some use cases more difficult. I'm not sure if going all flat based on the anti-skeuomorphic argument is worth it if it actually means making things more difficult to use.
 
If your main use is going to be SONAR, then the above probably won't be a problem, but worth keeping in mind if you plan to do other things as well.
 
OK that was quite offtopic, but the thread seems to have gone off on that tangent anyway :)
 

The fact that W10 Update doesn't work seems like something that should be fixed first (what is the error you get?). Maybe the .Net/C++ errors are due to an inability to update to the correct libraries because Update is broken.
 
I forgot exactly how, but did you try to do a Repair from the OS install media?

Here is a link that explains how to do a repair. Expand the "Use installation media to restore or reset your PC".
 
Edit: Except now that I read more of the details, it just ends up doing a System Restore. Since you can boot into Windows, you can initiate the System Restore from within Windows.

Appreciate it, but yes, I tried all methods I could think of.  I can get into a command prompt, but don't know what to change to fix it. Also, the flat vs. 3d UI design is what annoys me about the latest MacOS updates also. I hate it. Not sure why all UE designers took such a step back from what works everywhere. If I wanted a playskool OS I would be using ME.
 
Sonar is the best looking/Experience music App UE design in my opinion.  I want an OS that is worthy of it.

Wow, I just re-read this entire thread and boy do I sound like a massive complainer. Sorry about that. I guess not being able to make music has me down. I think I'll take a walk, then pull out my guitar (acoustic) and just play.
 
 
Then I'll go at it again.
 
 

Oh man. You have my sympathy! I have been there, or thereabouts anyway, a few times in my computer history, at one point I pretty much had to be physically restrained from throwing my whole rig into the ocean (which was tantalizingly close at hand, making the idea really rather tempting, but likely holding back was the right call in retrospect, even if only for environmental reasons...)
 
I'm far from an expert, just a fellow long-suffering user who's been through a few rounds with similar mysterious showstoppers before, but it sounds like there may be something amiss in the new components. Memory? Hard drive sectors? Win10 and Sonar are very stable at this point here, and I'm on *old* hardware (mental note: run the backup tonight! and upgrade to that SSD system drive soon!)...  
 
Have you tried booting up a live OS boot CD to run some checks? Also, if you do another reinstall, I would run Win10 updates first before installing anything else. Again, not expert advice, just my own experience...