Windows 8 is stuck in an automatic repair loop

Anonymous
2012-10-26T21:04:03+00:00

My windows 8 get in a automatic repair loop and it couldn't repair it. And than it says log file d:\windows\system32\logfiles\srt\srttrail.txt

What to do?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2012-10-29T14:14:32+00:00

do a selective boot up with bios

get cmd to open and check

bootrec /fixMBR

bootrec /Fixboot

bootrec /rebuildBCD

and also

chkdsk /r c:

chkdsk /r d:

chkdsk /r e:

chkdsk /r f:

then let repair go thowe again and should be stoped

Was this answer helpful?

200+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2014-12-31T16:33:06+00:00

Hello Coonut,

Thank you for your reply,

I would suggest you to login to any other computer and create a Windows 8 installation disk. Using that disk you can perform the troubleshooting methods given below.

Refer the link to create the installation disk:

How to create installation media for a PC refresh or reset:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media

Hope the information helps.

Please reply with the results, in order to help you fix the issue.

Wish u a Happy New Year!

Thank you

Was this answer helpful?

70+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

280 additional answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2012-11-05T21:53:09+00:00

    Same problem for me.... Non stop "automatic repair loops". Contacted Microsoft support, Tier 1 and spent my morning with them on IM trying to get my PC to even Boot on WIN 8 via DVD, no luck. Reads the DVD for a while then blinks and comes back into the loop. If I Boot from a WIN 7 DVD, no problem and I get the WIN 7 install prompts.... Something very weird, and extremely worrying since this is the Final WIN8 Pro version that has been officially released.

    I am scheduled to speak to Tier 2 support tomorrow and will update this as I get the result of that consult....

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2012-11-06T00:22:44+00:00

    Same problem here. No matter what I do, it goes back to the "automatic repair" screen and then fails. Even if i select safe modes from the recovery menu, it still starts "automatic repair", I find it hard to believe they could launch an OS like this without any way to reliably get back into the OS.

    I also contacted tech support, they took me through various options, "refresh" (which fails), system restore (which is off as I have a SSD), safe modes and burning a Win8 install disk and booting from that (gives same exact results as the regular recovery menu). They concluded the only way to fix was to re-install windows from scratch. Great.

    Definitely regretting my decision to upgrade my Windows 7 laptop to Windows 8... now I potentially face losing all my data (luckily I have a lot of it backed up in the cloud but likely not all of it).

    My solution right now is to try and boot Ubuntu, see if I can recover my data and then format the thing back to factory with Windows 7.

    For those who stumble on this thread, I have a HP Envy 14 laptop... it does not work well with Windows 8 (no good drivers for the video card which leads to poor battery life and no way to use the 3d graphics card).

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2012-11-06T02:52:49+00:00

    Had same problem with my windows 8 install.  Powered off my laptop (hp dv6c) during boot once (not during an update) as I was going to turn on virtualisation in the bios, but missed hitting f10 in time.  Silly impatience.

    Then would boot straight to an automatic repair loop, srttrail.txt containing zero errors.

    Tried the usual fix mbr type operations and check the partitions, various stuff for 4 hours or so.  Nothing helped.

    I was funnily able to get it to boot to my pre-upgrade windows 7, though it was really slow and not detected as genuine (fair enough as had upgraded from it).  Was enough to get a external disk attached and xcopy everything over.

    Then I reinstalled win 8.

    I didn't format when I reinstalled, and found that all my files, etc were still there in the c:\windows.old\users... .  Program files, etc of course wiped.  Other folders on c:\ survived (I had a couple of VMs in a folder c:\VMs for example).  So you may find even if you can't get a backup, most your files can live on if you don't format.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments