Mac Mini mid 2011 with High Sierra and Windows 10 1709 (Bootcamp v5). Freezing at boot menu

W10 is not officially supported on a 2011 Mac. If you have Automatic Updates enabled, you may end up with drivers which do not support the Apple hardware correctly.

You have underlying W10 issues, which rEFInd cannot really address. Was W10 clean-installed on this Mini or upgraded from W7/W8.1? You mention BC v5.x - are you referring to BC assistant version or BC drivers version? What is the version of macOS?

You still seem to have remnants of the non-Apple NTFS driver. In most cases, this behavior is due to a background chkdsk being run before the file system is 'clean' for Windows to continue to boot.

If you boot in macOS, and click on the BC/Windows partition, what type of a file system does it show - NTFS or a third-party NTFS? This screen shot is from an older Disk Utility.

This is the newer DU.

iibosshog wrote:

I have Tuxera NTFS 2018 (previously Paragon NTFS) installed to access and modify the data in my external NTFS formatted portable 1 TB drive.

All third-party NTFS software has a couple of issues.

• Inability to cleanly close NTFS files
• Leave the MFT in an unknown state, depending on how the OS switch is performed
• Interfere with the System Preferences -> Startup Disks

iibosshog wrote:

Will that SMC reset destroy any data or restore the O.S. to factory default?

No. How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support .

After you uninstall it, can you run a SMC and NVRAM reset, before you start testing?

Your 2011 Mini is a preUEFI Mac. If you can boot Windows, after you perform a Sun Salute, can you post the value of BIOS mode shown if you run msinfo32?

There should be no Windows EFI in play.

You may also need an SMC Reset. In Windows, can you run msinfo32 and post the value of BIOS mode? Do you have any third-party NTFS software?

Can you temporarily uninstall Tuxera/Paragon temporarily?

iibosshog wrote:

I did that, too. I can't until it won't BOOT INTO Win10!

Does Safe Boot work? If W10 fails to boot properly more than three times, it should automatically start the Windows Recovery.

iibosshog wrote:

And on the positive-ish side I just found out that I can enable NTFS write with a couple of commands...

Be aware that Apple does not certify read-write through their driver, so performance may not be optimal, and you may see some file system corruption.

Do you have a mechanism of backing up W10? Can you boot from the W10 installer and run chkdsk on C:?

iibosshog wrote:

I uninstalled Tuxera clean with CleanMyMac and did both resetting, did a full cleanup, rebooted and unplugged the usb dvd writer and the external drive and tried to reboot into Win10, but the boot menu still freezed.

CleanMyMac is not recommended. It is better to use the uninstaller which came with the product.

Can you boot W10 in Safe Mode?

I usually use https://www.smartmontools.org/ . If Disk Drill says the disk is all right, let us assume it is.

If you have a backup of both macOS and Windows, do you want to consider erasing the internal disk and restoring both OSes and testing it? For Windows, a tool like Winclone is easier to use than the standard Windows backup/restore.

If you have an Intel GPU, W10 1709 has some issues with drivers. Can you test with 1607 ISO/DVD from http://windowsiso.net/ ?

Many of us get depressed due to lack of Sunshine. Perhaps, you Mini is a sentient entity which loves the sun. 😉

Yes, heat can cause some issues. You may want to consider cleaning the fan on the Mini.

iibosshog wrote:

Legacy

Which is correct, hence there is no EFI in play. It is a BIOS installation. Does your Mini have a mechanical hard drive?