How do you deal with "stuck" Windows updates?

This morning I decided to try IE11 x64 on W7 SP1. First it went into a 30 minute loop and I could see it wasn't writing anything to the drive. I forced shutdown and whether booting "Normally" or In "Safe Mode" it then prompted that updates had failed and it was restoring the PC. This is the first time I've ever had that happen, which has the potential to be a good thing, however, it also went into an endless loop. I finally booted from a Boot CD I'd made with W7's program and did manage a system restore.
Part two of this odyssey is equally perplexing. I've restored W7 with both W7's app, which I made an image last night, or Paragon or AX64, which is removed at the moment. The W7 app's images are stored on a USB 3 drive I have mounted in the tower and connected to a USB 3 port on a PCIe card. It has never failed! Today though it seemed like W7 would bring up a new window that I've never seen before and I'd have to search for the folder in that G drive. But then when I'd select it and it would reboot, there would be another window asking what language, then the next window would tell me it couldn't fine the file. I've never seen any of this UI before. Now admittedly all the while the USB mouse was functional but the USB illuminated key board wasn't lit. I'm thinking then that it couldn't see the drive. I formatted that drive,made a new image and just tested it and it is still doing the same thing. Nothing has changed on my motherboard relative to USB.
I opened that recovery folder and right clicking it I have the option to restore but this is with the PC fully up and running.
Any help or theories would be appreciated!

 

take a look at this thread.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=354565

seems like it's a common issue recently.