Windows 8 is stuck in an automatic repair loop

I spent all weekend struggling with this but in the end made it work. 

My laptop (Windows 8.1) was not taking the recent updates and I read somewhere that I needed to increase the size of the System Reserved Partition. Which I did and when I restarted the computer it was stuck in the automatic repair loop. 

This is what I went through:

• BIOS legacy boot and secure boot - various combinations and steps - NO GO
• I have a Windows 8 recovery bootable USB for this computer. Booted successfully but no combination of "refresh" or "repair" worked. This is when I discovered the drive was "locked".
• I tried a variation of the Command Prompt commands to fix the system, again to no avail. 
• Using the "Diskpart" commands I checked the partition attributes and learned that the disk is set to RAW instead of NTFS. 
• Since this disk is a new SSD I was making the assumption that there is nothing physically wrong with it and the solution will come from figuring out how to switch it from RAW to NTFS formats. 

This is how I fixed it:

1. I took the drive out of the laptop and put it in a USB enclosure. 
2. I connected it to another working Windows PC (this one was Windows 7) and verified that Explorer was not recognizing the RAW partition. However in the Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management Windows identified the correct size of the RAW partition and said it was "healthy" (whatever that means). But I was not able to change it to active. 
3. On the working Windows PC I installed EaseUS Partition Master Free Version. 
4. EaseUS recognized the drive and all its partitions. 
5. I selected the RAW partition which was supposed to be my primary Windows 8.1 and I executed the "Check Partition" operation. I left everything checked with the exception of the "Surface Test" as this is an SSD and I did not think there was anything physically wrong with it.
6. It ran through its test, it also executed the Chkdsk.exe and scanned the drive and as I watched it, repaired some things. After it was completed, the partition showed listed as NTFS, and I could all of a sudden browse it on the Windows 7 machine through Explorer (I was getting excited). 
7. I installed it back in the original laptop and turned it on. It did not boot and went to a repair screen but a slightly different one form when it initially started failing.
8. I booted from my Windows 8 recovery USB and I tried to again use the refresh option to get it to work and that is when it came up with the error "startup couldn't repair your pc srttrail.txt"
9. I went to the advanced options where you can enter Command Prompt and when the prompt came up I typed c:

And my C drive, which is the partition which was locked and in RAW came up!

10. I executed the following commands:

bootrec /fixMBR

bootrec /Fixboot

bootrec /rebuildBCD

11. Shut down the laptop
12. Turn it back on and it booted back to my Windows just as nothing had happened, all my files, applications and settings as they were. 

This was a close one. If it was not for the demented Muppets at Microsoft, I would have spent my weekend doing something more fun. Making OS which constantly requires updates, and then the own updates do not even take unless you screw around with your system (and according to their instructions) is unacceptable. 

What I find horrible with this situation is how many people have lost their system setup and in many cases probably valuable data. I read many posts where the outcome ended up being to start from scratch.

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

Completed all the above but still didn't help, still stuck i the Automatic repair loop.Then tried a refresh again ( had tried this before but no luck) and after a long time (approx 1 hour) the screen then starts with the 'setting up' screen and carry's on. all OK now and have a list of all the program's taken off on the screen. will look hard at what i will put back on.

Good luck

Hopefully this may help someone.

I tried all the cmd commands and a restore etc all with no luck. The rebuildBCD command said that no windows installation was detected and I was seriously loathe to try the refresh, and have to re-install all my applications.

Anyway this is what worked for me.

In the advanced options, (where you find the command promt), there was another option which was Startup Settings. I rebooted through this screen and when the re-start options came up, I pressed F4 to start in safe mode.

Unexpectedly, the computer did boot into safe mode!

Once in Safe Mode I ran MSCONFIG (type msconfig whilst on the charms bar screen) and the system configuration window opened.

On the general tab in this window I selected normal startup, then pressed ok and the system rebooted fine into normal mode, no apps or data was lost.

Apologies for the rather unprofessional guide, I have never written one before!