The digital signature for this file couldn t be verified

This is one of the blue screen errors that can basically leave your system bricked. These errors should be dealt with carefully, as there is a chance or damaging your system beyond repair. You cannot perform system repair as well, because your system won’t boot and hence you cannot go into safe mode as well.

Here I will discuss why you may be facing this, and how you can potentially fix the error 0xc0000428.

Contents

• 1 Why Am I Facing This Error?
• 2 Solved: 0xc0000428; The Digital Signature For This File Couldn’t Be Verified
  • 2.1 FIX 1: Fix Boot Manager And BCD
  • 2.2 FIX 2: Startup Repair In Windows Recovery Environment
  • 2.3 Fix 3: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement
• 3 Wrapping Up

Why Am I Facing This Error?

While facing this error, you will be greeted with the message that says: “Windows can’t verify the digital signature for this file: \Windows\System32\winload.exe – Error code: 0xc0000428“

There are two potential reasons that you may be seeing the “the digital signature for this file couldn’t be verified” error.

• Outdated BOOTMGR is probably the most common reason that users face this error. If the boot manager is not updated properly or got corrupted, the error 0x0000428 may occur.
• Users who have dual boot enabled are also likely to face this error, as the older BOOTMGR may still be in use, or there may be no boot record for the new operating system.
• Windows may not be able to verify Digital Signature for recent Hardware or software change, leading to this error. All drivers should be correctly digitally signed and verified by Microsoft before they can be used on your device.

Solved: 0xc0000428; The Digital Signature For This File Couldn’t Be Verified

Now that you have a vague idea about why you may be facing this error, I will discuss some of the potential fixes that you can deploy to solve the error.

FIX 1: Fix Boot Manager And BCD

You can use the command prompt to open a tool called bootrec.exe which is generally used to resolve boot related issues with your system.

However, since you may be stuck at boot, you need to open Command Prompt from the boot screen itself, without turning on your computer. To do that on Windows 10, you need a recovery media.

1. Download and burn the Windows file from their website onto a flash drive or a CD if your device has an optical disk reader.
2. Click on Repair your computer. This will take you to Advanced Options.
3. Here, select Command Prompt.

Once you have successfully opened Command Prompt, you need to enter the following commands one by one and press Enter after each one.

• • bcdboot C:\windows /s C:

Note: Here, C:\windows is the windows installation folder directory, and C: is the boot partition. Modify them according to the settings of your device.

• • bootrec /fixMBR
  • bootrec /fixBoot
  • bootrec /rebuildBCD

Note: there is a space before the /

4. Restart your computer.
5. Try booting into your computer now.

After you enter these commands, the bootrec.exe tool will repair your device boot files, and you will be able to boot normally into your computer.

FIX 2: Startup Repair In Windows Recovery Environment

If the above steps don’t help you, or you don’t want to handle Command Prompt, you can run a Startup repair as well.

In the same boot menu that you opened in FIX 1, instead of Command Prompt, select Startup Repair as shown in the image below.

Following this, restart your computer. It should boot normally.

Fix 3: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement

If you consistently see the error “the digital signature for this file couldn’t be verified”, you may need to disable the Driver Signature Enforcement from the boot menu.

The easiest way to disable this is from repair media. Simply follow these steps:

1. Download and burn the Windows file from their website onto a flash drive or a CD if your device has an optical disk reader.
2. Click on Repair your computer. This will take you to Advanced Options.

Note: If you are able to boot into Windows, you can open Advanced Settings from Windows 10 Settings app. Simply follow these steps:

1. • Open Windows Settings app. You can use the keyboard shortcut Win + I.
   • Open Update and Security.
   • From the left pane menu, select Recovery.
   • From the right pane, select Advanced Startup.
   • Click on Restart now to open Advanced Startup Options.

Now follow these steps:

3.   In Advanced Options, select Startup Settings.
4. In the next screen, select Disable driver signature enforcement (usually option 7). Click on number 7, or press the F7 key to select the option.
5. Press Enter to return to your Operating System.

Now try booting into Windows. The boot functionality should work normally this time. In any case if you are getting third party inf does not contain digital signature then you can go ahead and check this article.

Wrapping Up

So, there you have it. Now you know how to solve the “the digital signature for this file couldn’t be verified”; error code 0xc0000428 using the steps above. Do comment below if you successfully solved your issue, and to discuss further the same.