WinLoad.efi Missing or Contains Errors, only on booting into Windows Recovery Environment

Hi there,

I am facing an issue with my Windows such that I am perfectly able to boot into Windows normally, but as soon as I try and boot into the Recovery Environment (by holding shift when clicking restart), I am greeted with a blue screen telling me that my 'PC needs to be repaired' and that 'a required file is missing or contains errors', and it points me to windows\system32\winload.efi. I am still able to boot into Windows normally after this, provided I exit the error screen into BIOS and boot normally through my system drive. There also appear to be several unimportant apps that I am unable to launch (although I think this may have only become an issue after a system restore, outlined later). I had been hoping to enter my system Recovery Environment to boot into Safe Mode, as I was hoping to clean install some drivers, and this was where I encountered the issue.

To reiterate, this only happens when I try and boot into the Recovery Environment by shift-restarting.

I have created Windows Installation Media on an external USB stick that I am using in the meantime to access its limited recovery functions, although I am yet to be able to find a solution, either by myself, through googling, or with the help of ChatGPT (yes I know the risks and am very careful about running potentially dangerous commands without further research).

From what I've been able to find, if WinLoad.efi were missing or corrupt, I shouldn't be able to load into my normal Windows environment. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this fact is only serving to confuse me.

So far, I have tried the following:

1. sfc /scannow in Windows and via the Windows Installation Media Recovery Tools (nothing reported to be repaired)
2. dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /Restorehealth in Windows and attempted the same via the Windows Installation Media Recovery Tools but was unsuccessful
3. Startup repair through the Windows Installation Media Recovery Tools
4. dskchk of my System Drive (no errors)
5. bootrec /fixmbr in Windows Installation Media Recovery Tools (successful)
6. bootrec /fixboot in Windows Installation Media Recovery Tools (unsuccessful - access denied)
7. System restore to an older restore point (I only had one and, granted, it wasn't that old; also unsuccessful)
8. Updated Windows via the built-in Windows Update in the settings app

I think that covers all of the steps I've taken. I might have missed something but I don't think so.

If possible, I would REALLY like to avoid having to reset or reinstall Windows, as I only had to reinstall it and set it up a couple of months ago, and I have a lot of tedious files and configurations saved at the moment.

Fortunately, this doesn't appear to be an urgent issue, as I am able to safely boot into Windows and carry out most of my daily tasks. However, I don't want to risk it becoming a bigger issue and, naturally, I would like to ensure that my install isn't corrupt at a deeper level.

I hope this is enough, but by all means please do request any additional information that could help diagnose the issue.

Thank you in advance.