[ OS: Ubuntu -24.04, kafka version: - kafka_2.13-4.0.0, Variant: Only Kafka and no Zookeeper.] - OP asked for windows. this is for ubuntu folks landing on this page.
Kafka might fail due to file permissions on /tmp/kafka-combined-logs or there is no meta.properties in that directory.
1. Find the logs directory - check kafka/config/server.properties. - look for "logs.dir"
my case: logs.dir=/tmp/kraft-combined-logs.
2. Give permissions to that folder. /tmp/kafka-combined-logs or remove the directory entirely.
chmod 644 /tmp/kafka-combined-logs/meta.properties
3. Generate a new cluster id.
CLUSTER_ID=$(bin/kafka-storage.sh random-uuid)
echo $CLUSTER_ID
4. Start the kafka server again.
bin/kafka-server-start.sh config/server.properties
5. Kafka should be running now.